Half-cent sales tax sees entire fiscal year, benefits

Work begins on Mabry Drive and Kensington Drive off of Eastview. (Record Photo/Nick Sellers)

By Nick Sellers | Staff Writer

MADISON – Among other financial items on the agenda Sept. 22, the Madison City Council approved the manner in which the $2.6 million reaped from the half-cent sales tax increase may be used.

Stemming from the announcement on the city’s website Sept. 17 about the Neighborhood Resurfacing Project, Finance Committee Chairman and District 1 Councilman Tim Holcombe proposed the funds be used as follows: 50 percent of the $2.6 million will be put into a bond account to pay off bond debts, 25 percent will be used for capital replacements and the remaining quarter will be used for repaving roads.

On Sept. 22, the last full week of the 2014 fiscal year, work began on some of the nine roads slated for work in light of the Neighborhood Resurfacing Project. Numerous portions of roads off of Eastview Drive – the northern edge of the Wall-Triana detour – and Slaughter Road were involved in the repaving.

Ruth Wilson, who lives on Mingo Road just off of Slaughter Road, said she is skeptical about the need for repaving.

“It looks fine to me, but I don’t really use it a lot,” Wilson said, adding that her sister owns a building on Wilson Drive off of Mingo Road, which is also scheduled to be repaved.

“It does have some pretty bad pot holes and places up there,” she said.

Wilson’s daughter, Melinda Mathis, saw it in a different light.

“If they’re using our tax money for how they said they were going to use it,” I don’t see how we can complain if we supported it,” Mathis, who owns Big Bounce Rentals, said.

Wilson mentioned she had not received notice that work was scheduled for her road as of Sept. 26.

At deadline for this story, work had not officially begun on roads off of Slaughter Road. Work had begun on the numerous roads adjacent to Eastview Drive, littering the major East-West road with pieces of tar.