Franklin County officials have been forced back to the drawing board on the future of the county's courthouse after voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a ballot referendum that would have paid for a replacement.
Following weeks of debate and with 31 of 35 precincts reporting, a decisive 63 percent of voters said no to the county's proposal to levy a 1 percent sales tax to pay for a new $20 million courthouse. The rejection follows a trend set in 2015, when a referendum seeking a .25 percent sales tax increase for maintenance of the current courthouse also failed.
County Board Chairman Randall Crocker said county leaders will have to "regroup" and decide how to proceed.
"The need is still real," Crocker told the Evening News. "Everyone agreed about the need. We're just going to have to regroup."
Crocker and other county officials barnstormed the county in recent weeks to urge passage of the referendum, which would have replaced the 140-year-old courthouse on the Benton Public Square with a state-of-the-art facility at a location not yet determined. County officials said the 1 percent sales tax, if approved, would have expired in no more than 20 years. Such a tax would have made sales tax in Benton in particular among the highest in Southern Illinois.
Among the reasons cited for construction of the new facility were problems with space, deferred maintenance and an outdated electrical system -- problems that are not going away.
Yet the proposed tax faced stiff resistance from the outset, with business leaders throughout the county eventually presenting a united front through advertising at highly traveled places. While largely acknowledging the need for a new courthouse, opponents of the proposed sales tax said it would have stifled business throughout the county, particularly on bigger-ticket items.
Ken Burzynski, owner of County Seat Antique Mall in Benton, led the way for the opposition movement. He agreed with Crocker that most citizens understand the need for a new courthouse, but that a new tax is not the way to get it done.
"We had a feeling there were a lot of no's," Burzynski said Tuesday. "We just can't raise taxes to do it. We have to find another way."
