Should the city of Emporia enact a new half-percent sales tax?
It’s one of several general questions being put to Emporia City Commission candidates during this year’s Candidate Spotlight interview series. Political newcomer Don Loux says it may not be needed —
On property taxes, Loux says there aren’t a lot of properties to tax when compared to larger cities, mentioning locations in Johnson County in the KVOE interview. He says there can be conversations with other local entities on property tax reduction, and city commissioners earlier this year asked Lyon County, USD 253 Emporia and the Emporia Recreation Commission to start a joint task force on that topic but they have tabled their own discussions indefinitely. He sees an expense review as a first step.
With the Regional Development Association of East Central Kansas still working towards a permanent president, better than 18 months after prior leader Chuck Scott resigned, and with the RDA board getting restructured to add more overall members and more voting members earlier this year, Loux says restructuring was a good idea. Having the RDA as the lead or umbrella agency for local economic development, with other organizations like the Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce, Emporia Main Street and Visit Emporia underneath the RDA umbrella, is not a good idea, according to Loux.
Loux is a former government employee with the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor. Having done telework and having moved to Emporia four years ago, Loux says overall housing demand is likely substantially lower than it was a year ago, largely due to the Tyson closure. He wants to focus local housing efforts in the city core — something Main Street has been working for years to develop, with several projects either underway now or completed over the last four years.
Candidate Spotlights are a departure from KVOE’s longstanding tradition of group forums with the goal of getting deeper answers into some of the main issues facing the city and its residents.
*Click here for KVOE’s Voter Information Guide, courtesy Community National Bank.
