Meals Tax Referendum Fails

The "No's" have it.

With 57 percent of the total votes, the meals tax referendum failed Saturday, and the will have to come up with another way to raise the cash needed to pay for the celebration in eight years.

had approved the 0.75 percent meals tax in October, but a group of residents and business owners lashed out against the decision and started a to hold a referendum vote.

The went back and forth for three months until yesterday when voters were finally allowed to decide.

The turnout for the referendum was low, with only 12 percent of registered voters going to the polls.

The highest turnouts came in precincts 5 (15.6 percent) and the newly formed precinct 15 (25 percent), while the lowest turnouts was in Precinct 9 where only 4.8 percent of registered voters went to the polls.

The "yeahs" outnumbered the "nays" in only two precincts: 4 and 15.

Here are the results as tabulated by the Town Clerk's Office.