Council to vote on setting sales tax election
City councilors are expected Monday to set a date and provide details for a sales tax election, said Muskogee Mayor Patrick Cale.
Discussion and possible action on an election had been scheduled for a special council meeting Monday, but Cale said he wanted to wait.
Cale said the city will set a special called meeting 5:30 p.m. Monday at Muskogee City Hall. He said the council will decide on the election date, as well as items to go into the tax vote.
'There's streets and there's building repairs,' he said. 'We'll release that in specifics, say 'here's what we're doing here. Here's what we're doing there.''
A half-cent sales tax approved in 2019 is set to expire in September. Elections must be called at least 60 days before an election is held. The next election date available is July 8.
Cale said the city will offer more information about what's going into the potential election.
'We want to be very out front and very in the open to provide this information,' he said. 'Full disclosure and accountability and we want it put in stone.'
Ward II Council member Jaime Stout said the city wants to be more accountable and transparent with the next election. She said that, if a tax is approved, all tax project claims approved by the city will go on the city website and incoming expenditures will go into the city manager's report and quarterly report, which will be on the city website.
The Rev. Aundrae Jones, president of Christian Ministers Union, told council members to include the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in the sales tax vote.
'We were told it might not be included in the CIP (Capital Improvement Plan),' Jones said. 'We all know Martin Luther King Center is one of the most utilized facilities in the city of Muskogee. Not a day that I drive by is it not full of people.'
He said Cale had stressed the value of MLK Center's afterschool programs and summer programs for children, and how no child should be turned away.
'If the King Center is not included in the CIP, that is exactly what will happen,' Jones said. 'Where will the kids go?'
Cale said the city is trying to be conservative about where sales tax money would go.
'We had some things shaved down a bit,' he said. 'We were not ready to release it. We still had some talks going on. We talked about changing some things here and there.'
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