Floyd Co. Council rejects income tax!

A welcome change from what looked to be coming down the pike...

From Harold Adams in the C-J...

The Floyd County Council reversed itself last night and killed a proposed 1.25 percent local option income tax it had voted in favor of last month.

The tax would have raised millions of dollars to offset projected losses of revenue resulting from property-tax changes enacted by the General Assembly this year at the urging of Gov. Mitch Daniels....

The proposal was approved on first reading last month along party lines with the council's four Democrats voting in favor and its three Republicans voting against it. A second and final reading was on the agenda at last night's meeting.

But when council President Larry McAllister called the matter for consideration, fellow Democrat Ted Heavrin, who previously introduced the measure, declined to move for the second vote....

McAllister then said, "There not being a motion made, it dies for a lack of action" and rapped his gavel to the hearty applause of a packed gallery. The process took less than a minute.

The outcome had been assured when McAllister signaled the day after last month's vote that he had changed his mind....McAllister said a wave of negative reaction from residents [250 emails] convinced him that the current tough economic situation was the wrong time for the new tax...