Shirk trying again to alter sales-tax hike

Supervisor Jim Shirk plans another run at getting his colleagues to go for alternative ways to finance Carson City capital projects.

He will try when the one-eighth-of-a-cent city sales-tax increase is up again next month at Board of Supervisors meetings, seeking in one of his motions to divert it to a vote of the people. He also would revive an altered version of his own method for financing the projects. When he pushed for a somewhat similar idea earlier this year, it died for lack of a seconding motion.

“All agenda items have been submitted to the (interim) city manager,” said Shirk, who will seek on April 3 to get approval for an April 17 night meeting, plus propose his own plans instead. One proposal involves submitting the sales-tax hike to a vote of the people in November. Another would use 2 cents in property tax money for some of the project funding, plus some lodging (redevelopment) tax money.

But if the eighth-of-a-penny hike is re-authorized anyway, according to another motion, he wants it used as money for building only an animal shelter.

The property-tax money and a one percent increase in the lodging tax, meanwhile, could underpin a planned multi-athletic center (MAC) and business corridor streetscape changes. But Shirk wants the MAC built at Mills Park rather than near the Boys and Girls Club of Western Nevada, providing some seed money as well for an addition at the club.

The projects and sales-tax hike were approved earlier, the tax by a 4-1 board tally with Shirk dissenting. That met the need for a supermajority. Because proper notice either wasn’t given or due to an inability to find documentation on it, however, city staff notified the board last week that new supermajority tallies are recorded again next month.