The City Council work session Tuesday, May 9 was held to discuss a report on aquatic facility needs of the Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department.
According to the report, Plan2Splash, the cost for maintenance of the existing pools and spraygrounds and for new facilities is about $82 million.
It didn’t take long during the council discussion of the report to bring up the need for “new revenue streams” to pay for those expenses. What the City Council calls “revenue streams” most people call taxes.
In particular, a new tax that the City Council has been discussing for some time, mostly in private, is the restaurant tax, also known as the prepared food tax. Just as it sounds, this is an additional tax paid on food and beverages but not alcoholic beverages sold ready to eat, whether it is on site or take out. The rules for the tax are complicated and have a number of special exceptions, but it is basically a tax on restaurant-type food.
Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter said, “I’m the liaison to the Sports Foundation for the City Council and we have been studying quite extensively how other cities are way ahead of us. Greensboro has the opportunity to become a youth sports town. We basically are, but all of the other cities are so far ahead of us, building all of these new facilities and there is a word out there I don’t even want to use, but they are seeking other avenues to collect revenue for people who are passing through on a one-cent food sales tax, I said it. Prepared food, prepared food tax, and actually on our board is Adrian Smith, who is with McDonald’s, and he said they have it in Charlotte. They have it in South Carolina. Everybody that travels through these cities for all those tournaments, they are paying that.”
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “It seems to me that when you take Greensboro and compare it to these other cities, you’re just missing out on so much, because they are looking at different income streams or they get different support in their county.”
Charlotte does have a prepared food tax while Greensboro does not, but in Charlotte the current property tax rate is 34.81 while in Greensboro, the current property tax rate is 63.25. So the property tax rate in Greensboro is not quite double the rate in Charlotte, but pretty close.
Don’t revenue stream on my back and tell me its raining.
GOOD GRIEF! This FOOD TAX is not a tax on pass through visitors, it’s a penalty for everyone that lives in Greensboro!!!
I’m going to need some pretty accurate data to give this insane idea any quarter. We are empty nesters with no interest in any City Pool or Sprayground. Why should we pay an add on fee for prepared meals? (Don’t forget, they’ll need additional employees to enforce and collect the tax as well.) Maybe an ID for Greensboro taxpayers and families so that we receive our exemption! It’s been my experience, having lived in two areas that had HOA’s and a separate Pool Committees, that the first year is the only year anyone is excited about committing to be a part of finding lifeguards, cleaning pools, scheduling activities, etc. then membership dwindles, kids get older, facilities get older and the next thing you know is that the pool closes. I resent being told a pool or Spraystation requires my dollars. $82,000,000 is today’s number, what’s tomorrow’s?
Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter says she’s a liaison forThe Sports Foundation. Perhaps she can tell us what age groups visit these facilities, what number of taxpayers or taxpayers children attend these facilities and how often? Has the Sports Foundation revealed their own P&L ? There are a ton of questions that need to be addressed before this moves forward.
Get ready to bend over again!!!
There is no limit to the greed of the Parasitic Sector.
– and they claim free market capitalism is the epitome of greed. Such selfish, grasping people… Hypocrites too.
Don’t expect this council to be concerned about the taxpayer but we need to copy Charlotte. We got their rejects with the new city manager.
Has this City Council ever met a tax they did not like? I did not think so. Looks like they will continue to push me to eat in Burlington rather than Greensboro. Next thing you know, they will bring back a mask mandate! That makes about as much sense.
Goodness the citizens of Greensboro are already being taxed to death. We are taxed at almost double the amount Charlotte pays and I don’t see ANY added benefit. Just when is enough enough?
NEVER. LEVIATHAN MUST BE FED!
More taxes means more control of us. The City flush with money extorted from the taxpayer, that they have used to reward the faithful while spending money like drunken sailors on shore leave.
Just because someone else does anything, taxes shoelaces, or commits a felony; doesn’t make it right. There are unprosecuted thefts committed all over the U.S., by that logic I can do it, too.
I detest our elected government.
First: FU city council. F your “revenue” streams to build stuff we don’t need. For the 1 millionth time. We are not Charlotte. We are not Raleigh. We have a high A baseball team and the worst G League team in the league. Big concerts, like the final Aerosmith tour, skips us. Stop taxing us like NYC. Start listening to the people that pay taxes and not the east side people with their hands out. I know I type this and several of you read it. If we are behind Raleigh and Charlotte it’s because of YOU council. Most of you have been there for years and all you do is come up with ideas to spend $ for small groups, not the majority.
As usual these taxes hit the middle class, if one exists, the most. You know, the people who work all day and may need to pick up food on the way home. And Nancy V you lied previously when you tried to downplay this tax. Come out and own it. Say you need to pay for spray grounds, GPAC and that you don’t give a crap if the police department is competitive and fully staffed.
By the way, the splash thing down town (I think LeBauer park) is the pedofile/ sex offender location in Greensboro. I know one group that stopped going down there because throughout the park the pervs are out in full force.
Maybe slow down the millions in advertising for the 100 million dollar Performance Arts Palace before squeezing poor people for change. The deficit our Matt Brown empire oversees needs endless revenue. What a bunch of tax and tax and spend and spend liberal grifters.
Parasites don’t normally kill their hosts!
Any CPAs looked at and translated where all the real moneys stolen from us are?
CAFR 1
Every politician is out of control. I’m from Greensboro but live at the coast now, but make the people who use the pool pay for it. As if eat out prices aren’t high enough with inflation. They’ll say well it’s only a few cents, but there is where it starts and then never ends.
You’re right, Marvin. I remember when VAT in the UK was 8%. Now it’s 20%.
When I came to NC in 1983 the statewide sales Tax was 4%. Now it’s almost doubled in most counties, at 7% or more.
Margaret Thatcher called it “the ratchet effect”, because taxes never seem to go down. The only way to make any progress at all is to repeal a tax completely, and make sure that it will be very difficult for the Left to re-impose it.
– Repeal of the “temporary” sales tax on food levied in 1961 by “Food Tax Terry Sanford (D) would be a great example of a tax that’s ripe to be repealed. And it would be politically difficult for the Democrats to reinstate such a regressive tax.
Maybe one of our candidates for Governor will take up the issue.
Everytime the comrades meet, the taxpaying citizens are driven further into submission and closer to the poorhouse. Marx & Khrushchev would both be proud!
Listen, you raped us with a timely (on your part) property tax increase. Twice the percent of your beloved Charlotte. Have you discussed privatizing the pools? Take that constant expense out of my tax dollars. Your job shouldn’t consist of dreaming of ways to extort our money. There are pool time opportunities in the city. Most apartments, the GAC, YMCA, Health Clubs, baby pool in your yard. HOTELS, private community or club, or a lake or creek. All of these are available if you pay for them. We shouldn’t flip the bill for a few that use it for a babysitting option. Our City Council needs business sense, take the power away from these lame representatives.
This sounds to me like a nice to have kind of water thing. Let the enjoying group pay to play. This isn’t a must have thing..
And you are talkative ng about eliminating trash pick up!
calculate how much additional revenue is required for the project and if you can’t find waste or employ other efficiencies to cover the revenue then raise the general sales tax by an amount to cover the shortfall – it will be a very small raise required if spread across all taxable items -don’t single out an industry unrelated to the project to separately tax because you will never get a consensus that way