SPLOST Town Hall Meeting Scheduled for Oct. 30

The Gwinnett Tea Party and the Gwinnett County Commission will hold a town hall meeting this Wednesday, Oct. 30, to discuss the 2014 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) referendum.

The meeting will take place at 7 p.m. at the Historic Courthouse at 185 W. Crogan Street in downtown Lawrenceville. Representatives for and against SPLOST will give brief opening statements. The remaining time will be allocated for audience questions.

Gwinnett County residents will cast ballots Nov. 5 on the SPLOST referendum. The three-year tax would generate an estimated $498 million to be used for transportation, public safety, parks and other projects. The tax would begin when the current SPLOST expires in March of 2014.

In a statement posted on their website, the Gwinnett Tea Party outlined their reasons for opposing SPLOST, including county officials' use of new school safety measures as a reason to vote in favor of the 1-percent sales tax:

"Vote ‘YES’ to SPLOST or your children will be shot. Seriously. The latest tactic is to say that if SPLOST passes they will be able to add safety measures to avoid a shooting in Gwinnett County like the one in Newton, Conn., which left 20 students and six teachers and other officials dead.  So I (and others) have some questions for County commissioners: If the County has a chance to stop mass murder in one of our schools, why wouldn’t that be a priority?  Why leave it up to the possible passage of a sales tax?" 

Read the full statement -- including the other reasons the Gwinnett Tea Party is opposed to the 2014 SPLOST -- here.

For more information about the town hall meeting, visit the Gwinnett Tea Party website.

A poll on Dacula Patch shows readers are evenly split on the SPLOST issue with just over a week remaining until election day. Will you vote in favor of the 2014 SPLOST? Let us know in the comments.

See also: Advance Voting Continues This Week for Sunday Package Sales, SPLOST Referendum