Marshfield City Council Says No to Wheel Tax
Wednesday, August 29th, 2018 -- 10:20 AM
(WDLB) -Most Marshfield aldermen last night quickly shot down the idea of a wheel tax. The majority of the Common Council rejected the idea, which came from Alderman Tom Buttke."It's one of the fairer taxes, if there is such a thing, because it does not go by the size of your house. It doesn't go by the value of your house. Everybody is going to be paying the same amount."
Buttke proposed a 25-dollar per vehicle wheel tax, which would be in addition to a vehicle owner's annual registration fee. The state would keep the first 17-cents, and the rest would go to the community strictly for improving streets. Alderman Buttke wants the additional revenue to improve residential roads, not the city's main thoroughfares.
"We have to try to do something and anything that we get is going to help."
Alderman Jason Zaleski calculated that a 25-dollar wheel tax would generate roughly 425-thousand dollars annually. He said a wheel tax is not the answer. Alderman Tom Witzel said he was opposed as well, and said the proposed wheel tax is a way around the failed streets-only referendum in the summer of 2016.
"And to me, this is just another way to say, you didn't want it, but we're going to give it to you anyway. We're not going to give it to you the same way, we're going to give it to you a different way and it really concerns me that it just, basically, flies in the face of a very negative response from the community and yet, we're saying we're going to do it anyway. And that really, really bothers me."
Alderman Nick Poeschel also weighed in against the proposed wheel tax, calling it "a gimmick from the folks in Madison so the Governor can continue to say he didn't raise taxes for road projects".
"If it was such a good deal, why are there only 25 cities that have taken advantage of it? Why are their only 6 counties out of 72 that have taken advantage of it? I think that the people in Madison need to do their job and come up with the money to assist us in our roads, rather than relying on the cities to punish the people that live in their communities by raising the taxes."
The proposed wheel tax would be limited to two cars per family. Aldermen decided not to pursue the tax right now. Marathon and five other counties have adopted wheel taxes, along with 19 cities--including Milwaukee.
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