Lexington town leaders split on meal tax to improve roads

Three Lexington Town Council members who helped repeal a local meal tax in 2005 are split on reviving it for road improvements.

Councilwomen Hazel Livingston and Kathy Maness lean in favor of adopting the tax for three projects aimed at reducing traffic tie-ups while Councilman Ted Stambolitis remains opposed.

The division comes as Mayor Steve MacDougall champions adoption of a tax of 2 cents pennies on the dollar on restaurant meals, take-out food and some snacks.

Livingston and Maness agree there seems to no other way to lessen road congestion anytime soon, adding their inclination to accept the tax might change if there’s a public outcry against the idea.

“If it wasn’t for these projects, I’d probably say no,” Livingston said. “But we’ve got to do something about roads.”

Town leaders are too impatient, wanting to tackle the problem quickly instead of waiting on federal and state aid that normally pays for road repairs, Stambolitis said.

“It’s unfair for us as a town to take on a federal and state responsibility,” the owner of the Flight Deck restaurant said.

Maness calls the prospect of help dim as federal and state aid declines.

“I don’t like taxes at all but everywhere I go, I hear ‘when are we going to do something about traffic?’” she said. “We can’t count on the federal government and we can’t count on the state government.”

MacDougall wants to make the tax permanent so it can be shifted to other road projects later.

But it might be limited to no more than 10 years as a test of its success and public acceptance, Livingston said.

MacDougall will accept such a limit “if necessary” to win approval of the tax but says it’ll needed for more road repairs.

“These three projects aren’t going to solve all our traffic problems,” he said. “The need for the tax may be greater than the need not to have it.”

Revenue from the tax initially would pay to:

▪ Add a traffic circle on Corley Mill and a side road off it near U.S. 378 and I-20.

Install a traffic circle at S.C. 6 and U.S. 378, with new routes into Lexington Middle School.

▪ Make parts of S.C. 6 and Church Street one-way routes.

Those roads are heavily used by local motorists in the steadily growing town of 20,000 residents as well as commuters across Lexington County.

The three projects will cost $13.6 million and take about four years to finish, officials estimate.

A meal tax is estimated to generate $2 million a year initially for Town Hall.

Plans call for collection to start Oct. 1. The seven council members can adopt it on their own, with no approval from voters required.