Published: August 08, 2007 08:34 am            

Burnside council: A dry vote would be catastrophic

The City of Burnside has spent much of its time over the last year desperately making contingency plans to deal with the economic ramifications of a drier Lake Cumberland.

Based on the discussion at Monday’s city council meeting, the potential reality of dry restaurants would be even more catastrophic to Burnside’s budget.

With a local option election coming up August 28 which will give the citizens of Burnside a chance to decide whether the last two years of alcoholic beverage service in this otherwise “dry” county has been beneficial, Mayor Chuck Fourman brought sobering news before the council — that many of the gains the city infrastructure has made thanks to the restaurant and drink sale revenue will have to be eliminated, and citizens may see a tremendous hike in tax rates — from Pulaski’s most affordable to its most expensive.

“As a council, we have to make a decision,” said Fourman. “We’re going to have to start thinking how we’re going to treat this issue the next day after the election (if the city were to lose alcohol sales).”

In May, David Carr and Billy Miller, two local clergymen noted for their anti-alcohol beliefs, attempted a petition calling for the reversal of Burnside’s “moist” status, allowing the sale of alcohol by the drink in restaurants. Neither man is a resident of Burnside, though Miller’s church, Jordan Baptist, is located there. After a couple of failed attempts to get the issue on the ballot, Miller and Carr finally succeeded in setting up a date later this month for Burnside citizens to vote on the issue.

At first glance, trends indicate Burnside voters may opt to keep the status quo. In the 2004 option election, the “moist” side won 219-172. Since that time, the city has gone from zero restaurants to five currently, and other businesses have moved in around those; two Pulaski precincts have allowed wineries to sell their product; and the council’s one staunch alcohol opponent, Don Coggins, lost his seat on the six-person city council in last November’s election.

Still, Burnside mayor Chuck Fourman saw the need to be proactive. If Burnside citizens should vote to cancel the ability of restaurants to serve adult beverages, the amount of money the city will lose in sheer dollar amounts — a total of $240,000-plus in the budget, $160,000 from the restaurant tax and $80,000 from the alcohol tax; conservative figures, Fourman suggests — pales in comparison to the sheer amount of tangible effect it will have on the city itself and its employees.

“This income means a lot to our community,” Fourman told the council and those in attendance at Monday’s meeting. “One big thing is that it has kept our city’s property tax rate at a minimum of 18.1-cents per 100 for the past seven years and we hope that we can continue this rate. It also helps in supporting our police department with newer equipment and more man hours on our streets. This income is starting to put things back into our community like infrastructure money, helping with park and street maintenance, assistance to local organizations and promoting our city.”

One plan Fourman presented for dealing with the potential effects of the loss of that revenue — the restaurant tax funds the tourism commission, which is kicking a total of $40,000 yearly into the city’s budget for various city improvements, such as water lines, and the alcohol tax goes directly to benefit the Burnside Police Department — is to raise the tax rate from 18.1 cents to 54 cents per every 100. That would make it the highest rate in the county — currently, Burnside enjoys the lowest such rate — and account for $250,000, which Fourman called “basically a wash” compared to the money the two alcohol-related taxes produce. That doesn’t account though for rising costs, he said — and with raises of eight percent in retirement costs and 15 percent for health insurance’s, for a total of $25,386 extra needed next year, the city would still be losing out.

The other solution besides raising taxes each year, said Fourman, is to cut services — “and I don’t like that at all,” he stated. Among the improvement items the city has done or is planning to do that would have to be terminated according to Fourman are:

• Upgrades to Cole Park, including a planned amphitheater for live concerts as well as walking trails.

• Landscaping the median once the new highway cuts through town. The city wants line the middle of the road with grass and trees for a walkway, but the state highway department has told Burnside they won’t bear the cost of the project.

“I think that would be very attractive as opposed to it basically looking like an airplane landing strip,” said Fourman.

• Tourism Commission giving money to various local organizations, such as Little League, and also the money for infrastructure needs such as repairs to water lines and the control panels at the water planet, which Fourman called “an antique.” Specifically, the city needs matching funds to get grants for these purposes, which has been available things to what the Tourism Commission gives to the city.

• The police force might be the most affected. The department jumped from employing two officers in 2004, the tear the restaurant referendum was passed, to four officers by the end of 2005, when the first restaurant began to start serving drinks. Currently, the Burnside Police Department has five officers — one for every 100 men, women or children in the city of 618 residents, noted councilor Jim Rasnick.

“This town is becoming one of the safest places to work and live with our 24-hour police protection,” said Rasnick. “(The ratio of officers to citizens) is unheard of in any town you go. There’s a message in that for criminals: If you don’t want to get caught, don’t mess around in Burnside.”

Not only has the city gone up in officers — and in budget, from $186,000 in 2002 to $465,500 this year — it’s also purchased three new police cruisers for which Burnside owes $32,000. Were the city to lose the alcohol tax revenue, the cars would have to be sold back, leaving the force with two cars to share, “one pretty good car and one really bad car” according to Fourman, for three officers to share — since the city would have to lay off two of the five, said the mayor — “but we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do.”

Fourman read a letter from Burnside Police Chief Eddie Glover following a request from “an organization in Somerset” for the number of arrests for Driving Under the Influence (DUI) and Alcohol Intoxication (AI) offenses. In terms of sheer numbers, there has been a spike in these arrests since the referendum was passed — just as there has been for all sorts of traffic violations.

In 2002, there were 16 DUIs, 4 AIs, 84 moving hazardous violations, and 92 other violations for 209 total. The city had three police officers that year, noted Glover. The numbers were similar in 2003 and 2004, with 191 and 207 total violations respectively but with only two officers.

In 2005, the year Picasso’s Bistro starting selling drinks for the first time since the 1930s, there were 189 total violations, with 11 DUIs and four AIs. By the next year, the city had jumped up to five police officers, feeling the fullest effects of the alcohol tax on the police force by then, and the city had also received several grants to target impaired drivers, allowing virtual 24-hour coverage and the streets.

As a result, the numbers shot up in 2006 — 47 DUIs, 18 AIs, 561 moving violations, and 1,113 total. This year has been on track for similar numbers, with 42 DUIs, 29 AIs and 572 total violations so far.

“I believe we have a younger and more proactive department,” said Glover. “A few more reasons the totals in 2006 and 2007 are so high is partially due to the fact that the majority of time on weekends we have two officers out until 2 a.m. We also received a grant in 2006 for overtime on moving hazardous violators and we worked 207 hours of overtime on it. We received a grant to stop impaired drivers, and we have worked approximately 80 hours on it.”

Added Fourman, “With such a high number of total arrests, it figures that you’re going to have more DUIs and that kind of thing.”

For comparison, he noted that two neighboring communities without alcohol sales, Mt. Vernon and Monticello, each had in the neighborhood of 120-130 DUIs last year.

Former Burnside mayor Dean Lovins was in attendance and asked about how much money the restaurant referendum brought into the community. Fourman noted that there have been 220 jobs created and a total payroll of $3.5 million for he restaurants alone — figuring in the money spent in the community for the construction of those businesses and other related jobs, the total would be closer to $15 million or more, he speculated.

But it was another former mayor, sitting councilor Rasnick, who delivered the most impassioned speech of the night. Rasnick listed a number of things he considered positive developments following Burnside’s decision to allow alcohol sales — using his own experience as a point of authority.

“As a real estate person, I can tell you property values have increased,” he said. “The fact is, Burnside is becoming a place people want to move to. There’s new businesses locating in town ... they see the progress we’ve made.

“I just think that Burnside is becoming an economic catalyst for Pulaski County,” he added. “I watch our development office up in Somerset try to create 250 jobs — and in little old Burnside, we create 250 jobs with a vote.”

Rasnick also brought up the issue of the state lodge that is being planned for General Burnside Island, complete with a restaurant that would presumably serve adult drinks.

“There hasn’t been a state lodge in 50 years that there has been a state park,” said Rasnick. “Wake up America, as to why they’re putting a lodge out there.”

Rasnick took issue with Miller and Carr for bringing forward the petition without being Burnside citizens, saying that he doesn’t believe “we need people from outside Burnside telling us how to vote.” On the contrary, he had words of praise for the citizens who made alcohol sales possible in 2004.

“Burnside is a progressive town with progressive people who are forward thinking,” said Rasnick. “I just believe that the Burnside residents were smart enough three years ago to see what advantages of this vote were, and I have every faith that they will be the same this next election. ... All I can say to the citizens is that they need to show up Tuesday, August 28 and vote.”

        

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