Rosston voters will be ask to pass sales tax

ROSSTON – Residents of Rosston will soon get the chance to vote on a one-cent sales tax.

At its July meeting Monday, the Rosston City Council approved ordinances to seek a one-cent sales tax and hold a special election for it. The election must be held 60 to 120 days from the adoption of the ordinance. Mayor Dale Quarles said the election will likely be held in September or October. The sales tax is a sales and use tax for the city and contains no sunset clause. This means if the tax passes, it will remain on the books permanently.

In other business, councilman Irene Tidwell reminded the panel to attend the July meeting of the Nevada County Quorum Court, which will be held at 4:30 p.m. July 13, as support is needed to apply for another grant to continue work on the Oak Grove Community Center. She said the old grant will be closed out and a public meeting is required to apply for a new one. Last year, she added, 32 people showed up to support applying for the grant.

Quarles said the new water meters are in and the city is working with CUSI on the programming. The water department employees are being trained on how to use the new programming and read the meters. The council was informed the June bills were done by hand this time, but will be sent out by computer next time as the meter reading will be automatic. The new meters, he said, detect every bit of water going through them and can help people find out if they have leaks or not. The new meters register when water is being used with a time stamp.

The city has a call system in place where customers who sign up can be notified, but not everyone has signed up. A recent leak in the city’s system resulted in the loss of 300,000 gallons of water required the system to be temporarily shut down while the leak was found revealed the importance of the call system as those not on it had no idea why they didn’t have water.

Quarles thanked the citizens for their patience and support during this transition.

He told the council he’d spoken with Entergy about the street light problem in the community. Apparently, several street lights were out the company wasn’t aware of. Quarles said he and another employee went around and tagged the utility poles where the lights were out and Entergy replaced the bulbs with new lights that are 50 watts brighter.