Early voting began today in Batesville for the special election to extend both the current one-cent sales tax to replace the city’s water treatment facility and the current half-cent sales tax to perform significant improvements to Riverside Park.
City leaders note the new water treatment facility will replace the 1960s-era plant, which is in danger of failure. If the initiative to extend the current one-cent sales tax for the new facility fails, the city says water bills for Batesville customers could double.
City Engineer Damon Johnson told the Batesville City Council at their meeting last week the city has no choice but to build a new water treatment facility.
“Our plant can make about 10.5 million gallons a day. On paper, it should be 12.5 million, but after decades, about 10.5 million is all we can make,” said Johnson. “It’s also 60 years old. Many plant components are to the point of being unable to be repaired or replaced. The life expectancy for the plant was about 40 years. We’ve done 60. You can tour it, [and] it doesn’t look too bad for a 60-year-old plant, but components are near the end of their life. We hope that doesn’t happen before the new plant is ready.”
If the half-cent sales tax is also extended, Riverside’s 60 acres will receive an overhaul, including a new events center, bike and skate parks, sports courts, and water and nature play spaces.
“We will be more competitive than many other communities,” Johnson told the council at last week’s meeting. “It’s a parks initiative that includes many amenities. The intent is to aid our industrial members to recruit and maintain, as we are predicted for population decline, which is difficult to stop once it starts. Younger people are moving to places — first, for the environment, and then to figure out what they want to do. We need to create an environment for people so they want to live here and create population gain, not to mention it would improve the quality of life for our citizens who use the parks. Last year, we had around 1.8 million to the park. We have the beautiful White River there. We want to create some components for the park that include water play, nature involvement, redoing the amphitheater, sports court areas, a skate park, an adventure area including mountain biking trails and hiking trails, and more splash pad areas. It will be a fantastic park.
“We are proposing we refinance the half-cent sales tax and use the equity that has built up to do this parks initiative. Essentially the sales tax does not go up, we just reset the clock.”
Early voting is being held at the Batesville Community Center, 1420 S. 20th St., Aug. 1 through Aug. 4, and Aug. 7, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Election day voting will be held at the Batesville Community Center and West Baptist Church, 1100 N. Central Ave. in Batesville.
