Leeds voters went to the polls Tuesday and overwhelmingly voted to reject a property tax increase.
This was a very highly controversial proposal from the beginning and ultimately voters decided that they were taxed enough already.
Leeds Mayor David Miller had said that the money would have been used for a new athletics complex at the high school, a new football stadium at Leeds High School, a new library, a senior center, city hall, and other improvements.
City officials claimed that two-thirds of the money would have gone to the city school system and one third to the city government.
The voters defeated the proposal 1506 to just 971. 60.8 percent of Leeds voters were opposed, while only 39.2 percent voted in favor of the proposal despite a well-funded effort to sway voters. The vote No effort, however, was extremely active on social media.
The proposal would have raised property taxes by 9 mills. The owners of a $100,000 home would have to pay $90 more a year in annual property taxes. The owners of a $300,000 home would have been forced to pay an additional $270 a year.
Mayor Miller promised before the referendum, “If the referendum passes, we will build what we have guaranteed to build. If not, we will build what we can as we can.”
When Leeds built a new high school four miles away from their old high school, which became a middle school they did not build a new football stadium. The Leeds Green Wave sports teams still play at the old fields, that date to the 1950s behind the middle school. After the failure of the referendum, they will continue to play at the old field for the foreseeable future.
Leeds is located east of Birmingham on Interstate 20. Approximately sixty percent of Leeds is in Jefferson County, almost thirty percent is in St. Clair County, and about ten percent in Shelby County. Leeds has a Bass Pro Shoppe store, the Grand River outlet mall, and has been the home of Lehigh Cement for over a hundred years.
While state legislators keep bringing bills authorizing tax increases, voters increasingly reject them. Tuesday’s failure of the Leeds property tax increase; follows recent rejections of tax increases by St. Clair County voters, Muscle Shoals voters, Baldwin County voters, and others.
State legislators are mulling an increase in fuel taxes to pay for more road projects.
