Eneira Fraire helps her dad, Jose, as he votes at the Mack Gaston Community Center in Dalton on Tuesday. Whitfield County voters rejected a proposed 1 percent, six year, $100 million Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) in a landslide.

DALTON, Ga. — Whitfield County voters on Tuesday soundly rejected a proposed 1 percent, six-year, $100 million Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) that would have funded a variety of projects for both the county and the cities within it. The vote was 3,605 votes against (57.94 percent) to 2,617 votes in favor (42.06 percent).  

The county’s current four-year SPLOST, which is on track to collect $64 million, will expire on June 30. The proposed SPLOST would have started on July 1.

“I am extremely disappointed,” said county Board of Commissioners Chairman Lynn Laughter. “I don’t know what I can say beyond that.”

Jevin Jensen, chairman of Engaged Citizens for Georgia, a group that opposed the SPLOST, welcomed the news.

“I am pleased the voters of Whitfield County heard our message and agreed that the proposed SPLOST was overburdened with nonessential projects,” Jensen said. “I want to thank our amazing grassroots volunteers for all their hard work on our many initiatives. Historically, over 93 percent of SPLOST ballot initiatives pass, especially with a well-funded supporter, so we are a true underdog story in preventing this $100 million tax which would have been paid mostly by the citizens of Whitfield County. I stand ready to work with anyone on more effective, fiscally responsible solutions to the challenges facing our community, so we can truly move forward together.”

The Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce supported the SPLOST and created a separate entity called Citizens for SPLOST to “actively” ask county residents to vote for it.

“We ran a positive campaign, but the voters have spoken,” said chamber President Rob Bradham. “We obviously hate to lose, but I’m proud of the way our team conducted themselves. Voter turnout was higher than the last SPLOST election. I appreciate the level of interest in this election. We’ll have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what’s next for the community.”

Whitfield County’s share of the SPLOST would have been a projected $76.3 million. The county would have used that money to demolish Administrative Buildings 1 and 2 and replace them with, respectively, a new taxpayer services building ($5.7 million) that would have housed the tax commissioner’s office and tax assessor’s office, and a new government services building ($18.2 million) that would have contained all other county offices other than those related to the judicial system.

The county also would have spent $19.2 million on road repaving and bridge repair. The county has been funding road and bridge work out of the current SPLOST and not from its operating budget. And it would have spent $7.1 million to pay off some $4 million in bonds issued to build the fire station on South Riverbend Road, to make improvements to the animal shelter and to buy a new fire truck and sheriff’s office vehicles.

“The commissioners will have to regroup and consider all of our options,” Laughter said. “There are some projects on this SPLOST project list that will have to go forward. These include necessary paving and bridge repairs, a new space for the accountability courts, the fire station on the south end of the county, fire trucks and vehicles for sheriff’s deputies, among other needs. We’ll have to see how we proceed.”

And the new administrative buildings?

“We’ll have to regroup and figure out what to do,” Laughter said.

The city of Dalton would have used $4 million of its $21.46 million share to tear down the John Davis Recreation Center and build a new rec center in its place, $2 million to build new baseball/softball and soccer fields at Heritage Point Park, and $1.5 million to build a walking and biking trail along Mill Creek to connect Haig Mill Lake Park to the Crown Mill area near downtown.

The city also would have spent $5.6 million on streets and bridges, $2.6 million on new fire trucks and $1.3 million on new police vehicles.

“I’m sad that the John Davis project won’t get done,” said Mayor Dennis Mock. “That building is in terrible condition. But the city is financially sound. We will take care of business. We have strong reserve funds (approximately $21 million) to make sure we don’t fall behind in taking care of maintenance and capital projects.”

According to the Whitfield County elections office, 13.05 percent of the county’s 47,857 registered voters voted. That was up slightly from the 10.26 percent of registered voters who voted in the March 2015 special election for the current SPLOST. By comparison, 59.57 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the November 2018 general election.

Dalton resident Mitch Williams said Tuesday afternoon he had voted in advance voting for the SPLOST.

“I think they are going to do most of these projects anyway,” he said. “And to me, spreading the burden out over everyone who buys something in the county makes more sense than putting it all on property owners.”

Dalton resident Jill Perry said she voted against the measure.

“It’s too much money. It lasts too long, and some of these parks and other things seem more like things we can do without right now,” she said.