
{"id":13603,"date":"2010-11-04T08:32:50","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T16:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=13603"},"modified":"2010-11-04T08:50:01","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T16:50:01","slug":"mckee-wins-sales-tax-rejected-in-close-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/11\/04\/mckee-wins-sales-tax-rejected-in-close-referendum\/","title":{"rendered":"McKee wins, sales tax rejected in close referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Kirk Ross and Will Bryant, Staff Writers<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Going into this election season, Rougemont\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Earl McKee knew next year would be a tough budget year for anyone on the Orange County Board of Commissioners.<\/p>\n<p>McKee, a Democrat, won his race, but another outcome of Tuesday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s election made his new job a little more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>McKee beat Republican Greg Andrews with 31,804 votes to Andrew\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 12,413 in the District 2 commissioners race. He joins incumbent Democrats Alice Gordon and Barry Jacobs, who both ran unopposed.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Orange County voters decided not to grant the commissioners the option to raise an estimated $2.3 million annually through a quarter-cent Sales and Use Tax.<\/p>\n<p>Aaron Nelson, president of the Chapel Hill-Chamber of Commerce and a proponent of the tax, said the tax would have boosted the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s economic-development effort.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are pleased to have earned the vote of more than 20,000 Orange County residents for increasing the sales tax to support creating jobs and improving schools. We are disappointed that it was not enough to pass the initiative,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nelson said. <\/p>\n<p>Election officials said turnout was heavy all day. Several voters interviewed during the day said concerns about the national races brought them out.<\/p>\n<p>Outside the polling spot at Carrboro Town Hall, Cov Deramus said he saw several social and economic issues at stake in the election.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Also, I have a serious concern about a Republican takeover in congress,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Deramus said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m an Obama supporter and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m out here supporting his agenda.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Rodney Turner, who staked out near campus encouraging students to vote Republican, said worries about the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s debt got him involved.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am out here today because of my children,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I look at my children and I am scared for what is waiting for them. There is a debt that even my grandkids will not be able to pay off.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Carrboro Board of Aldermen member Jackie Gist, who greeted voters at Carrboro Town Hall, said the turnout seemed much higher than the last midterm election.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is amazing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t nearly this big four years ago. I think people are worried about the elections.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Turnout was especially heavy in some of the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s northern and rural precincts, including White Cross and Caldwell.<\/p>\n<p>One hitch in the balloting could delay a final tally for several days. Students started turning up in large numbers at the Chapel Hill County Club precinct requesting provisional ballots rather than at the precinct where they were registered, overwhelming the staff. Elections director Tracy Reams said the result was about 150 more provisional ballots. They and provisional ballots from other precincts will be voted on by the board of elections later this month.<\/p>\n<p>In other local races, Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass was re-elected, winning 34,048 votes to Republican challenger Buddy Parker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 10,546.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Going into this election season, Rougemont\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Earl McKee knew next year would be a tough budget year for anyone on the Orange County Board of Commissioners.<br \/>\nMcKee, a Democrat, won his race, but another outcome of Tuesday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s election made his new job a little more difficult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13603"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13625,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13603\/revisions\/13625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}