Charlotte council discusses city sales tax




The Charlotte City Council held their regular meeting on Thursday, Sept. 13, in which they discussed various important agenda items. However, two major topics of discussion included raising the city sales tax and what to do with the old Methodist Church.

Mayor Buddy Daughtry had a few comments on the raising of the city sales tax.

“I have proposed that the council approve raising the city sales tax rate half a cent more, which would make it 8.25%, so we can match the other cities in the county,” he said.

The city is entitled to one and a half cents out of the sales tax of 8.25% and the city has only been getting one cent. Mayor Daughtry said he would love for the city to get that half cent and put it toward fixing the streets, one of the water towers and the water well.

“This would enable us to have a better opportunity to borrow money from the government and/ or get government grants to improve our city,” said Daughtry to the council.

He also mentioned he would love to get one more city worker hired to help out the with thinly spread city workers Charlotte already has with that extra money.

Two other items on the agenda included the discussion and approval of disposing the furniture in the Methodist Church and discussion on the future of the building.

Mayor Daughtry has been hard at work renovating and keeping the building free of intruders. More recently, the roof has been fixed, a massive four foot wide and three foot deep bee hive was removed from the bell tower, a fence was placed around the building and asbestos was also removed.

Daughtry proposed occupying the front room of the building first and making it the library while they renovate the rest of the building. Eventually, the building would occupy the new city hall as well. The council agreed unanimously to the proposal.

As for the disposal of the furniture, Daughtry proposed one of two things, tossing all the furniture out or auctioning/ selling the furniture.

Council member Christie Rankin proposed putting all the furniture on the lawn and letting people come take what they want for a day only then sell the remainder of the items afterward.

Councilman John Heiligman suggested holding an estate sale. However, Councilman Ricardo Garcia suggested getting someone to double check the health and safety of the furniture to see what is good to sell or give away. The council agreed to table the agenda item for further discussion and action.

Other agenda items included the approval of hiring student workers from the high school as approved by the counselor and school. They agreed this gives students the opportunity for a future college or job referral and the chance to learn the basics of working.

The Charlotte City Council will hold their next regular meeting on Thursday, October 11 at 6:30 p.m. in city hall.

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