The city of Riverside will ask voters in April to approve a half-cent sales tax for the purchase of new equipment for public safety.
The city’s board unanimously approved ballot language to be included in this April’s municipal election for voters to approve the proposed tax.
At the board’s meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 5, city administrator Brian Koral told the board the tax would be dedicated to public safety so those needs don’t have to “compete” with other capital improvement projects.
Koral told the Platte County Citizen the city is looking ahead to some big ticket items that will need to be replaced in the next five to seven years. Koral pointed specifically to two fire engines that are coming due.
“Both are nearing 20-plus years of service to the community,” Koral said.
Koral said the city also recently retired the police department’s mobile command bus it uses when it needs to set up a remote location and the city’s dispatch center is also looking at computer upgrades that, “allow our team to accurately and quickly dispatch police and fire to locations and track calls for service,” Koral said.
The language in the tax does not have a sunset date for expiration and Koral said that’s intentional.
“We’ve seen recently where KCMO Fire had to go back because the stuff they had bought on a first round eventually had to be replaced,” Koral said. “This will allow for those items to continue to be replaced in the future.”
The city is also working against the calendar. Koral said in order for the city to get the authority to put a tax on the ballot it has to go through the legislative process at the state level. The process for Riverside began in 2017 but lawmakers couldn’t agree on anything until 2019.
Koral said 2020 Census numbers are expected to be released this summer and those numbers could put a crunch on the city’s plans. A population change could mean the city has to start the legislative process all over again because it will have exceeded the population range of the statute.
“When those population numbers are released and confirmed we believe our population will be outside of that range,” Koral said.
Mayor Kathy Rose said during the meeting that she had some concerns about the ballot language. She said it was too broad and could be a turnoff for some voters.
“Based upon what the actual question is there is a lot of education that will need to be done,” Rose said. “I don’t want anybody to feel like we’re trying to do something of a bait and switch. We need to be able to supply them with answers.”
Koral said the city is not near its sales tax cap and said the city could benefit from celebrating the purchases much like the Missouri Department of Transportation does with signs when a project is completed.