The Crawford City Council is hosting a town hall meeting tonight at 6:30 in the Community Building on 2 issues that might be placed on the November ballot – a half-cent sales tax for infrastructure and changing elections to the council from wards to city-wide at-large voting.
Mayor Connie Shell says the council is holding the town hall because the members want to get as much input from the public before deciding whether or not to send either or both proposal to the voter.
A half-cent infrastructure sales tax would need to earmark the projects or types of projects it would be used for. The council will outline them tonight, but in general the focus would be on streets, water lines, and sewer lines.
Shell says elections have generally been attracting fewer and fewer candidates for council in recent years with more than one member resigning after moving out of their ward but still within the city. Eliminating the North and South Wards would result in city-wide voting as is done in Chadron.
Mayor Shell says that while the council wants as much public input as possible, the members ask that anyone not feeling well submit their comments in writing rather than attend tonight’s meeting – adding that social distancing guidelines will be followed.
If the public input indicates Crawford residents do want to put the half-cent infrastructure sales tax or the citywide council voting or both on the November ballot, the council must submit them to the county clerk by September 1st – which means acting by the end of next week.