Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
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Voters in Polk, Dallas and Warren counties loudly said no to an initiative that would have raised the local sales tax from six cents on every dollar to seven cents on every dollar.
Of the many communities and unincorporated regions in the tri-county region only two communities approved the sales tax increase. Overall only 15 percent of voters in the three counties supported Project Destiny. In Des Moines alone 21,000 voters rejected the proposal.
In Bevington, a small Warren County community, two of the four registered voters turned out and voted yes. Dawson, a small Dallas County town, saw 27 supporters turnout versus 12 opponents. Bevington and Dawson were the only communities to approve Project Destiny. However, because none of the other contiguous regions of major cities and communities approved the plan the local option sales tax will likely mean little to those communities.
Turnout was high for a special election. Voter participation was at about 20 percent in Polk County and 25 percent in Dallas and Warren counties.
Supporters of Project Destiny did not say whether they were considering bringing back the initiative to voters at a later date. However in comments to Iowa Independent yesterday Cyndi Fisher of Yes To Destiny said that a defeat of the proposal would cause a need for community leaders and government officials in the tri-county region to discuss the results.
George Davey of NoLocalOption.com, an opposition group, told Iowa Independent yesterday that a victory would be a “two-point takedown.” The next step opponents would consider is lobbying the state legislature to change state law to create a “timeout” period of three or four years after a defeat before a local option sales tax increase could be considered again by voters.
With such an overwhelming defeat supporters of Project Destiny told the Des Moines Register that there were a lot of citizen concerns that would not or could not be immediately solved before the initiative was brought up again.
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