Jeff Davis Parish.com
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2% Sales Tax Proposal is simply a "Crock of Shit"!
Phase 1 in District 8 plans to cover 20.045 miles of road
repair to include overlay, 3 course treatment and gravel at a combined cost of
$1,833,485.07.
The 2% tax is estimated to bring in 2.1 Million per year. There are 13 districts
in Jeff Davis Parish, all with Phase 1 projects. The parish has a total of 603
miles of roads and are planning 274 miles of improvements in phase 1. In
District 8, the average per mile costs of improvements in phase one is
$91,468.44 per mile. If you use this as a benchmark for the other districts then
for phase 1, the police jury will need approximately $25,062,353.00 for phase 1.
They will surely come up short. It will take some time for the money to catch up
to the projects. Remember phase 2 & 3 are not guaranteed so the phase 1 roads
are the ones that are most likely to be politically motivated.
District 8 road repairs in phase 1 make up 7.315% of the total parish wide road
mileage, yet the costs will take up 87.3% of the total tax dollars expected to
be received in the first year. With that in mind, the remaining 12.7% would be
distributed among the remaining 12 Districts in the parish.
In order to pull this plan off even with bonding, the Phase 1 projects will span
over the next 20 years. More than likely what you will end up with is a
bastardize phase 1 plan that consolidates phase 1,2 & 3. There are roads that
need gravel now and cannot wait 10-15 more years for pavement. They will put
gravel as a temporary solution and this will eat into the money earmarked for
pavement on your road, which will push you further back on the list. The longer
it goes the more inflation eats away at the original costs and in 10 years your
road is no longer feasible to pave.
The single most interesting to watch if the proposition passes is which roads are improved first. If one of the roads is paved that you do not understand why but don't really care because your road is getting pavement anyway, then you will have to exercise some patience because you may not see improvements for 10-15 years or not at all. While the roads that are politically motivated are getting the preferential treatment you will have to wait for more money to come into the coffers for your own road.
The proposed plan for pavement is too aggressive and wreckless. It is highly likely that those people that support this tax will not support it any longer 10 years into it. The police Jury went 20 years on this tax instead of going 10 years and letting voters decide for themselves as to whether or not it should be renewed based on progress over the previous 10 years.
Everything about this tax proposal, as written is a crock of shit, and voters need to vote it down. If it passes, then many of those supporting it will have to exercise patience to the tune of 10-15 years. I recommend you save your paperwork that was distributed at the meetings and the JDN news articles because what you will see in 10 years is not what they promised.
As usual...this is just my opinion. Yours may vary!