Agenda - 03-06-2008-6bx - Laserfiche WebLink

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spots; typically, especially with cable, that 15% is paid for by what he can save the client by arranging the media buy ^ Would there be value in getting out next week to talk to a couple of groups, including. realtors, to fmd out what their questions are? ^ Chatham County's flier seems way too dense, has way too many words on it, but they do have some pretty good questions ^ This group has already hit on the major points: what the needs are, what are the possible ramifications -don't do certain things? not keep up school construction? higher property taxes? all of those are pretty well understood ramifications that are factual, because that's what might happen; you're really choosing to be taxed one way or another ^ One of the deficiencies in the Chatham County flier was that they didn't get into the alternatives ^ County Commissioners can decide they'll pledge to spend the proceeds on certain things and that's fine to put in a document ^ Commissioners have made commitments in the past for how (bond) money would be allocated and they stuck to that, keeping their promises ^ This isn't an extra revenue so they could do something new, like aone-time expense -it's added revenue to meet the obligations ^ BOCC being as specific as they can and as firm in their commitment as they can would give people something factual to evaluate, rather than just saying we're. going to pass this tax, let the money go into the General Fund, and we'll let you know what we're going to do with it later ^ County is going to have schools, sheriffs, whatever it needs -it's going to build that new school; it doesn't matter whether moneys are committed; all the money looks the same when it's sitting in the bank ^ Some folks will say that since schools are such an emotional issue, "that's why they're saying the money will go to the schools"; schools and parks are very emotional issues; nobody wants to be seen as not supporting education ^ The General Fund is easier to be against -you can say "just cut the budget" ^ If funds are pledged to the capital budget, then the quality of the schools and the rate at which they go on could be affected by this, and the number of pupils per classroom for some given period of time could be affected ^ The number of trailers could be affected; residential CAPS, and the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance could be tested ^ One way to posture this is that there are needs by the County, and they're going to be met, and you get to pick - do you want to pay the taxes with a transfer tax or do you want to pay it with your property tax? that's the choice you get on this ballot ^ Another way is to say look "the immediate needs of the County is they've got to build Elementary#11, and this County building, acquire this land, or complete these parks" ^ Those are the two primary discussion points -why do you need this money, and why is the land transfer tax a good alternative ^ This could be a supplement to school bonds because the County is at its debt capacity ^ Whatever informational points are to be communicated to voters have to be few -maybe one or two -and they have to be very simple, straightforward, and repetitive ^ Chatham County's document could serve as a template if you change the content and simplify it ^ The Web should be the channel to deliver more information; all our pamphlets should simply state a couple of high level facts in big print, with a good picture and pointers to the Website ^ Most of voting population understand what's in their pocketbook and if they hear transfer tax they'll go "they're going to take that money out of my pocket - we need to defeat that"; they need to understand that if they don't sell their house, they won't pay anything out; if they sell their farmland, they'll pay .4% of that, and if they don't own a house, they won't be paying it