BREAKING! Email exchange between local business owner and Mayor Chip Johnson. (It is an email exchange so for better clarity read from bottom up) You should all read this debate, it will open your eyes to the true nature of this tax increase and its future consequences. On , Cedar Hill Farm wrote: Dear Mayor, Since I have not heard back from you, and you danced around the main issue and did not answer my direct question of what the estimated operating budget would be. Except to verify the fact that we can not afford it. By your silence I will assume I may have struck a bit of a nerve with you on the subject. We will get back to my predictions on how all this will eventually play out in a minute. First let me explain to you what I believe to be what most people in Hernando do and do not want. I believe most people in Hernando choose to live here and commute to work in places like Southaven and Memphis because they want their home to be in a small quiet and beautiful town. If they wanted to live next to huge mega sports parks and along roads with huge car dealerships, malls, factories, wharehouses and eat out every night at Chain Restaurants then they would have bought a house in Southaven, Olive Branch, Horn Lake or somewhere in Memphis. But they chose Hernando. They chose it to be away from all the noise, traffic and big city life in general. They chose it for lower property taxes, good schools and family run businesses. They dont really mind to commute to work in order to keep their small home town free of all the negative that comes along with having these large corporate businesses in town. Family restaurants and businesses offer something that is perfect for small town life. When you walk in the doors the owners are there to shake your hand and pat your kids on the head because they know you personally and appreciate your business. Family businesses are working hard to struggle through these rocky economic times and they do not need the added birden of collecting and paying the tax for this new Renasant Park. If you have ever run a business and had to pay your tax burden on the 15th of each month then you would understand their struggle. Even though the customer pays the tax, when you are a business owner and you have payroll and repairs that need to be made and you have to write a huge check to the tax Commission each month from your account I can assure you that at that point it doesnt feel like the customer is paying the tax it feels like the business is paying the tax. If you are even one day late on paying there is a 10% penalty and interest accrues every day after that. As an example, when you are budgeting your food costs and setting menu prices to be competitive with other restaurants and trying to keep the total bill including tax say under $10 a person for lunch, when you have to figure in the 2% tax increase and if that is going to make the bill be say .20 cents over $10 making someone have to break a $20 to pay, it makes the customer think your food is too high. It makes you feel like as a business owner that you need to absorb that .20 cents to keep the total bill under the budget price of a $10 meal. That .20 per meal adds up to a lot of lost profit to an already tight and competitive market. But if you have never run a business how could it be expected for you to ever begin to understand basic things like this. I believe the people of Hernando when they find out how much it will cost to operate this mega park will reject it. Once they realize that the yearly operational budget will be in the millions per year, leaving Hernando with an estimated $60 - $80 million dollar unfunded liability over the next 30 years, they wont be so much for it. All of the added workers, seasonal, part time and of course all of the full time workers that will require health benefits and life time pensions. If our current parks budget even with all the Federal and State Grant money coming in is only around $708,000 and even if Hernando grows its budget by 25% over the years, which is a big if. That still only gives us a $1 million dollar operation budget for the parks system. This is also assuming that the broke Federal government isnt going to cut off our grant money in the near future which is very likely to happen as well. So where is the extra $1 - $2 million going to come from to take care of this park expansion every year? I can tell you where it is going to have to come from. Just like Southavens temporary pennies for parks tax increase, they are already having to ask to extend it INDEFINATLEY, FOREVER because they badly need the funds to continue to operate these huge parks they have built. Also we will have to raise all of our property taxes up to as high or higher than Southavens. We will then be in a position with a huge mega park that we have already built that has to be funded to keep it going. What are the people to do then? Let it grow up in weeds and bulldoze it down, or all have to vote to raise our own property taxes to keep it going? I can see the big picture here. We the people of Hernando do not want a huge expansive city. We want to keep Hernando a nice small town. We can continue to grow slowly as we have been and that is fine but we do not need to speed up the process or try and be like the big cities of Southaven and Memphis. That is not what the people of Hernando moved here for and we will show up on August 5th to vote, NO NEW TAXES! Respectfully, Robert Foster On Thursday, July 10, 2014 12:51 PM, Cedar Hill Farm wrote: Since you have researched it. Would a fair number be around $2 million? $4 million? $6 million? for the operational budget upon the completion of Renasant Park? Give me a ballpark, no pun intended. Robert Foster Sent from my iPhone On Jul 10, 2014, at 11:41 AM, Chip Johnson wrote: Robert, The current year budget is about $708,000. Of that, $242,367 is generated by 2 mils of property tax collections. Another $91,000 is transferred from the general fund and is a mixture of sales and property taxes. So, a total of $333,367 in local tax dollars is funding the parks system. The remaining $375,000 is generated through a small amount of grants and fees paid by participants. The parks department offers 23 different programs for people of all ages and abilities. I agree that the parents are doing a lot of work on their own, but it would take years to raise enough money to build the larger ticket items. If we added the extra expense onto the league fees, it would increase them by hundreds of dollars to raise enough to build restrooms, field lighting, etc. Obviously, it will take more man power, supplies, and equipment to maintain Renasant park when it is totally built out, but no one is talking about building the entire park right now. If someone dropped $24,000,000 in our lap right now and said, “build it”, we would not have the operational budget to maintain it. We think, that by increasing our built environment a little at a time, our tax base and population base will grow along with us and make it doable to add staff a little at a time over the years. I think the real question here is “ do we want these improvements now for this generation of kids(and are we willing to pay a 2 cent tax on each dollar spent at restaurants) or do we think that what we have is adequate and not worth the tax. I have not seen the 1 cent tax in Southaven affect anyone’s decision to dine out or stay at a hotel and I think the same attitude would be seen in Hernando for the 2 cent tax. I have many friends that own restaurants in town and I absolutely don’t think it will negatively affect their business. I think that the improvements the tax will pay for will draw more customers to town to dine in their establishments. I have done a lot of research, and having a strong parks and rec offering is vital to economic development. Our quality of life is one of the main reasons that SXP decided to expand in Hernando instead of adding on in Tunica. The property taxes generated by this one plant along with the utility bills they pay to the city are equal to about 300 homes, and they require a lot less city service. These companies get incentives from every city, but they make their decision nowadays based on where they would like to raise their families. We have been building Hernando’s brand for years and it is starting to pay off. As an aside, I am happy to see your business doing so well and I am very happy that you started the CSA. You are doing many things with your business that help make the Hernando area the great place that we all love to call home. Chip Johnson, Mayor City of Hernando, Mississippi 475 West Commerce Street Hernando, MS 38632 662-429-9092 From: Cedar Hill Farm [mailto:cedarhfarm@yahoo] Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2014 11:12 AM To: Chip Johnson Subject: Re: Raising Taxes in Hernando! Mayor Johnson Thank you for taking the time to read about my concerns over this matter. It sounds to me from the details you gave below like the parents and sports organizations are growing, expanding and improving the facilities just fine on their own without a new tax already. I do have a few other concerns I wish you would clarify for me. What is the current operational budget for Hernando Parks department? What will the estimated operational budget need to be raised to in order to manage and care for the proposed expansion of Renasant Park, upon its completion? Where will these additional funds come from to pay for this increase in the operational budget for the Parks Department? Respectfully Robert Foster Sent from my iPhone On Jul 10, 2014, at 9:49 AM, Chip Johnson wrote: Mr. Foster, You are right that this is a 2% sales tax on goods purchased in restaurants or for hotel stays. The senate bill specifies that it is for three years only. I am not certain, but I think it would have to be voted on again to extend past that point. This is an initiative brought to the Board of Aldermen by a group of citizens who want better facilities than we can afford with our low property tax rate. Hernando has much lower property taxes than Horn Lake, Southaven, and Olive Branch(about 35% lower). Your recommendation of having parents operate concession stands is a great idea and is already happening at soccer games and at the civic center ball fields. The baseball parents have spent thousands of dollars re-doing two ball fields and the soccer parents have raised about $27,000 to irrigate three of the six new fields that have been re-purposed from the north sewer lagoons. The “Friends of the Dog Park” have almost raised enough money to build Hernando’s first dog park. The “Friends of the Skate Park” have raised close to $30,000 toward the construction of a skate park. These citizens have been working very hard to raise money. The citizens are not proposing to build a $24,000,000 park with this money. What they are proposing to do is possibly light soccer fields, build bathroom/concession facilities, build internal roads and install water and sewer facilities to start Renasant Park, add tennis facilities, etc. This is not an exhaustive list, just some ideas I have heard from citizens and not everything can be done with the approximately $1.25 million raised over the three year period. Prices will have to be attached to each of the ideas and the public will have to work with the Board of Aldermen to prioritize projects. The money would be placed in a separate fund(dictated by law) and spent only on park –related items. Southaven has a total tax of 10% on food bought in their restaurants and I have never heard one person say “I am not eating in Southaven because of the restaurant tax”. Quality of life is a big consideration for a business looking to relocate to another town and parks are a large part of that quality of life equation. We have a great town that we all love; however, there are some who want to raise the bar a little quicker than our low property tax rate will allow. The vote on August 5th is the most democratic way to answer the question “am I willing to pay an extra 20 cents on a $10 restaurant bill to improve the quality of our parks facilities in Hernando?” Respectfully, Chip Johnson Hernando, Mississippi 475 West Commerce Street Hernando, MS 38632 662-429-9092 From: Cedar Hill Farm [mailto:cedarhfarm@yahoo] Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2014 7:50 AM Subject: Fw: Raising Taxes in Hernando! On Thursday, July 10, 2014 7:45 AM, Cedar Hill Farm wrote: Read this and forward it on. Let everyone at least know both sides and form their own opinion before they vote. Even if you dont live in the city limits of Hernando and can not vote you know people that do and you should make sure they get this. We all eat in Hernando and we all know hard working families trying to run restaurants in Hernando that we need to support. Citizens of Hernando, please take a moment to read the other side of the story to this new proposed “Pennies for Parks” tax as they call it. Do not be fooled. It is a tax. It is a tax that they claim will only be temporary for 3 years, but who among us can name a time that a tax was ever temporary? Do they not always extend and expand them as time goes on? They are appealing to our hearts as they always try and do. “It’s for the kids.” Don’t they deserve the nicest that we can give them? Can’t we afford to give a few pennies more for every dollar we spend to help out the kids? The businesses will not be hurt, they don’t have to pay the tax just all the people that choose to eat there do. Why don’t we think about this for a minute and use our heads and not our hearts. Hernando is a smart town, we have a great town. Let’s keep it that way. Let us be leaders in our state and in our country on how to properly operate and keep our, over taxing and over regulating government in check. A little background on me. I grew up in Hernando and played sports here my whole life. Baseball, basketball, football, soccer and even a little tennis from time to time. I played both in the Hernando city leagues and for Hernando schools. When Hernando High first started a soccer team they had to play on the old high school football field because there was no soccer field in Hernando. I joined the team around the first year that we were given the old High school field to use as a soccer field that the city league is now currently using today. It was horrible, way, way, way worse than it is now. It had not been tended to in years, had potholes that you could lose a leg in, hardly any grass on it and run down as bad as a sports field possibly could be. What did we do about it? Did we levy a tax and single out a few businesses in town to pay for us to have a new soccer field? A tax law that will be forced upon them, even if the business believes that it will hurt their business and decides not to collect it, then the government will fine and penalize them and may shut down their business? Did the majority of the town get together and force by law through a tax anyone that wanted to patronize a certain business in town to pay for us a new soccer field? No. Myself, the high school soccer coach, a few other players and supportive parents spent that next summer working on the field. We had work days and people pitched in to help. We made great memories playing on that field. It took two years to get a good stand of Bermuda on that field but we did it and we didn’t single out a few particular businesses to levy a tax on, to do it for us. We didn’t give the local government the chance to get their hands on our funds to waste away like they always do. I have two little kids both playing in Hernando city leagues now. I love sports. I love my kids. I love Hernando. I want my kids to have the best opportunity to enjoy sports as I did when I grew up, but there is a better way to do this. There will be consequences to local family owned restaurants and hotels in Hernando if we levy a 2% additional tax on them, which will raise the cost of eating out in Hernando to 11% in taxes. Yes that is right, an 11% tax is what we will have in Hernando if we let this pass. Hardworking families in Hernando just trying to keep their business afloat in this economy do not deserve to lose business to surrounding towns because Hernando will have the largest tax around. They do not deserve to have to be the ones to bear the burden for everyone who has kids playing sports in Hernando. I know that many pushing for this mean well and have nothing but good intentions. But, I have some better solutions. Why don’t we raise the price on the fee that is charged to play in the city leagues? Why don’t we let the parents of the kids actually playing sports in Hernando pay for the new fields and upgrades, this will include me. Sure it will cost a lot more for our kids to play sports in town if we want a first class facility but shouldn’t the people using this first class facility be the ones to pay for it, instead of forcing other people to pay for it? Why don’t we cut some waste in current taxes and redirect some of those funds? Don’t we already pay enough taxes? Don’t they already waste it away as quick as they can take it from us? Maybe we can have some fund raisers, sponsorships, operate a concession stand to raise additional funds, ask for private donations, sell bonds etc. There are lots of other options, and combinations of options to serve the same cause. Maybe after we look at the actual cost of building this proposed $20 – $24 Million dollar facility, that’s right $20 plus MILLION, we would then decide to do it in phases over 20 – 30 years and not be so extravagant with it. If they only estimate to bring in $1.2 million dollars over the three years of this added tax, then where is the other $20 million going to come from? Do you really think they will just do away with the tax after just three years if they still have $20 million more of debt to pay down? Maybe scale it way, way back and live within our means. Luxury is nice, but isn’t luxury much nicer when we get someone else to pay for it? Let them know that Hernando, MS uses its head to vote and not our emotions. We think before we tax ourselves! We think before we vote! And all you politicians don’t forget that! Support Local Hernando Businesses and Vote No New Taxes August 5th! Robert Foster Resident of Hernando, MS
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 23:20:04 +0000
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