Dougherty T-SPLOST passes by narrow margin

ALBANY — City Manager Sharon Subadan put it best: “… by the hair of our chinny-chin-chin.”

Subadan’s reference was to the narrow passage of the transportation special-purpose local-option sales tax vote Tuesday, a vote that ended with “yeses” outpolling “nos” by a slim, 2,104-1,935 margin. The 169-vote difference gave the “yes” votes a 52.09-47.91 percentage split.

“The voters in the community made it very clear that they want infrastructure improvements before we use any of the T-SPLOST funding on trails or other ‘nice-to-have’ projects,” Subadan said immediately after the vote tally was completed in the Dougherty Elections office. “My mantra all along has been ‘need-to-have’ before ‘nice-to-have,’ so nothing’s changed about that.

“We won’t start collecting the (T-SPLOST) funds until July, but we already have a six-year (road resurfacing) plan in place, and we will continue as planned. But it will be nice to have $6 million (per year) to work on our roads rather than $2 million.”

Early returns Tuesday showed that passage of T-SPLOST in Dougherty County would be an uphill battle. “No” votes outpaced “yeses” by a 39-vote margin after seven precincts reported, and by the time the vote in 19 precincts was tallied, the margin was 25 votes, 1,088-1,063.

The tide swung in the “yes” votes’ favor just after 9 p.m. when Elections officials reported that the votes for T-SPLOST outpaced anti-tax votes by a 2,062-1,873 margin. That margin held pretty much intact when the last precinct reported in, and city and county officials like Subadan breathed a sigh of relief.

The five-year T-SPLOST collection is projected to bring in $80 million for city and county transportation-based projects, the majority of which will be used by both governments to repair roads and streets.

“The first item of business now is to work with the board to develop a list of priorities for the T-SPLOST projects,” the city manager said.

Dougherty Elections Supervisor Ginger Nickerson, who works diligently with her staff to encourage voter turnout in each election, was in a somber mood at around 6:30 p.m., a half-hour before polls closed.

“Three people had voted at the Albany State precinct by late afternoon,” Nickerson said (although the college is on spring break and currently has a limited number of personnel and students on campus). “Turner Elementary (precinct) had eight people vote by late this afternoon.”

Those numbers were running pretty much the same countywide. Just before 5 p.m., Covenant Church Precinct Manager Rose Ponder said that usually bustling precinct had had 88 voters. (Two more came in before a Herald reporter left the church.)

“We’re hoping we’ll have a late rush come in when people get off work, but it has been slow around here all day,” Ponder said.

In the end, 4,048 votes were cast, slightly less than 7 percent of the county’s 59,341 registered voters.

Sandi Alvey, who works at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany, said she got off work early to come to the Covenant precinct and vote.

“I try to always vote,” Alvey said. “And this one was a hard one to make a decision on. It’s always hard to vote to tax yourself, but with people moving out of our county, paying for infrastructure improvements makes the burden even harder on homeowners.

“The good thing about (the T-SPLOST) is that other people from outside the county who use our roads and shop at our stores will help pay for the projects. But, still, self-taxing is always tough. There are definitely two sides to this vote.”

Nickerson lamented the low turnout for a pair of practical reasons.

“This election, with this small number of voters, is going to end up costing as much as the December runoff election (for the Georgia governor’s race),” the Elections supervisor said. “You have to pay for the ballots, the overtime that people work, you have to prepare equipment, you have to pay the technicians.

“I told our poll workers that in this kind of scenario, where a small number of voters turn out, that small group determines whether or not everyone is going to have to pay an additional 1 percent on their taxes. And they determine it not only for the people in Albany and Dougherty County, but for all of the people who visit here.”

One voter at Covenant offered a telling comment as she received her ballot from poll workers.

“You know what,” she said, “I didn’t even know the vote was today until someone mentioned it this morning. Looks like someone in the city and county would have done a better job of getting the word out there.”