Get out the vote on Davis area arts initiative
Also, Dixie theater group seeking $1.5 million for a home
Similar to Salt Lake City's ZAP tax and Ogden's RAMP tax, Davis County has a proposition on the ballot for what is being called the RAP tax.
If approved, the funds raised — one cent for every $10 spent on non-food items — would go to a variety of entities in the South Davis Arts Coalition, including Rodgers Memorial Theatre, the Bountiful Performing Arts Center, the Bountiful Davis Art Center, the West Bountiful Arts council and the Joy Foundation.
As taxes go, this one is relatively painless. No assessments from the city or county in your mailbox every year. If you purchased $7,000 worth of non-food products in any of the four cities involved (Centerville, Bountiful, West Bountiful and Woods Cross), just $7 would go into the RAP fund ("RAP" is an acronym for Recreation, Arts and Parks, the areas that would receive a percentage of disbursements from the cities involved).
Thousands of Davis County residents have been funneling dollars into Salt Lake County's ZAP-tax program. Every time you buy clothes or books or other non-food items in Salt Lake County, you're paying taxes that help support the zoo, arts programs and parks.
RMT already has an option to purchase a site directly north of Zions Bank, just a couple of blocks from the I-15 interchange on Parrish Lane. The current RMT is slightly off the beaten path, especially for those traveling from outside of Centerville.
Several other Davis County cities were offered the opportunity to join in the proposition but either declined or let the offer slip through the cracks.
I highly recommend that residents in the four cities involved vote in favor of the RAP Tax on Tuesday. I would, but since I live outside the polling jurisdictions, I can't. An affirmative outcome will go far in expanding the arts and recreation throughout the area.
Check out the www.southdavisrap.com for details.
• THE ST. GEORGE MUSICAL THEATRE is dealing with a similar, arguably more desperate, problem than the Rodgers.
The latter at least has a home of its own, but SGMT has been moving all over the place the past few years. Right now, the company is basically homeless, putting on productions (when space is available) in Dixie State College's Eccles Center for the Performing Arts.
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