No recount for West Bountiful RAP tax

By Joseph M. Dougherty
Deseret Morning News
Published: Monday, Dec. 10, 2007 12:19 a.m. MST
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The curtain has closed on the possibility of a special sales tax for recreation, arts and parks in West Bountiful.

Though the City Council recently voted to allocate $700 to pay for a recount of the votes in the Nov. 6 election, no petition was filed with Davis County Clerk/Auditor Steve Rawlings in a timely fashion to have the recount take place.

Rawlings said a petition with signatures of 10 residents is required to recount votes, but by the time West Bountiful officials contacted his office, the official election canvass was nearly done.

Voters in West Bountiful rejected the 10th-of-a-cent sales-tax increase by the slimmest of margins: 721-722.

"The moral there is don't think your vote doesn't count," said West Bountiful Mayor James Behunin, shortly after votes were tallied.

The sales-tax increase, had it been approved, would have provided revenue to build the South Davis Performing Arts Center, which will provide a new home for the Rodgers Memorial Theatre, currently residing in a strip mall on Pages Lane in Centerville.

Woods Cross voters also rejected the RAP tax, by 40 votes, but Centerville and Bountiful residents voted for it.

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Over the next eight years, the tax, which will take effect April 1, will raise $2.85 million in Bountiful and $3.87 million in Centerville.

That combined revenue, with money from private donations and a $6 million contribution in land from Centerville's Redevelopment Agency, will fund the center's construction.

If all four cities had approved the tax, each city would have likely contributed about 60 percent of the RAP tax revenue toward the project.

Bountiful and Centerville will contribute nearly all of their RAP tax revenue toward it.

The $14.2 million center is expected to include a 500-seat main theater, as well as a 150- to 200-seat black box theater, recital halls and recording space.

Currently Bountiful and Centerville city councils are drafting ordinances to impose the sales tax in 2008.

Centerville Mayor Ron Russell recently told the council that he hopes to break ground on the center during the summer, with a possible opening for the 2010 theater season.

Mayors in West Bountiful and Woods Cross had supported the RAP tax, and said they may send it to their voters again in 2008.

E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com

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