Milledgeville — The Baldwin County Commission will have to rack their brains again after residents voted no to a transportation local option sales tax, or TSPLOST, for the third time since 2012.
The tax, shown only on Baldwin County ballots, had 53 percent of residents vote against it and 47 percent vote in favor. The TSPLOST was on regional ballots previously in 2012 and again this past May. County manager Carlos Tobar said they thought the tax being a local option would sway voters.
"Based on the comments that we heard in May, that a lot of individuals would have supported it if it was a local T-SPLOST," Tobar said. "Well, we listened to that. We put together a local T-SPLOST initiative and it still didn’t pass."
The tax would have brought in an estimated $35 million aimed at fixing crumbling road infrastructure, including paving roads, fixing potholes and repairing old bridges. One bridge in particular on Horace Veal Road is over 50 years old, made of wood and doesn't have any guard rails.
Anna Schroeder lives on that road and says that is generally safe, but when the weather gets bad, it can be dangerous.
"When it floods it floods up to about six inches of the bridge," Schroeder said.
She said she would like other issues like pot holes to be fixed on a road that can be dangerous since it serves as a shortcut between highways 49 and 22 in Milledgeville.
"People like cutting through so we get a lot of traffic back through here cutting through. So it’s a lot of wear and tear on a road," Schroeder said.
The road and the bridge are two areas that the county is already targeting, according to Tobar. He said he believes part of the reason people voted against the tax was because they were only hearing about the money it would cost and not enough about where the repairs would happen.
The tax is intended to aid in road rehabilitation and repairing right of way.
"Those were the two main projects, but I think people wanted to see names of streets, names of bridges and culverts," Tobar said.
The county commission has a growing list of roads that need repair and is waiting on reports on bridges from the Georgia Department of Transportation. They still will have to determine how they want to address paying for repaired roads.
Tobar said the only other option is raising property taxes, but people were already apprehensive after other taxes like the special tax district for hospitals.
"Having to fund transportation, infrastructure, it’s not just Baldwin County. It’s nationwide and trying to find the right funding mechanism is still a challenge," Tobar said.