Dear Editor:
I read in the Tribune that the Farmer Brothers are going to use the 1 percent secret sales tax in about a month to build some store buildings at the old St. Mary's property. The Farmer Brothers must be poor businessmen because numerous stores have been built with no secret tax. In recent years many new stores have been built such as Tractor Supply, O'Riley's, Harbor Freight, Baskin Robbins, Here Today, IHop, Goodwill, Popeye's. Plans have been announced for KFC, Machens Ford, and Orschelen's. There are a number of vacant buildings on Missouri Boulevard like Nancy's Trade-a-Book, Goodwill, Subway in WalMart Plaza, Golden China, next to Webber Meat and Mosers. Several stores have closed in the Farmer Brother's Capital Mall recently such as Sears, Kitchen Collection, Kay's Jewelers, and Book World. Book World is closing all 45 of their stores because of competition from online sellers.
CBS News recently reported that 7,000 retail stores would close this year, and 30 percent of malls would ceased to be used for shopping. Why is tax money being used to build stores?
Why is it that the Farmer Brothers receive a 1 percent sales tax when the other new stores have received no subsidy? Farmer Brothers will be able to have building materials from their own businesses such as Midwest Block and Brick, Farmer's Concrete, Jefferson Asphalt, and their own sand and gravel companies. Since nothing has been said about them selling building materials to themselves at cost, I assume that they will make a lot of money for their own companies. They might even increase the cost since taxpayers will pay $6 million according to their figures. Few people will realize that they are paying so much money to the property developers. They could post a notice at each cash register, but they do not even do that at their current properties such as the Capital Mall.
Is there a good reason that the City Council voted this secret tax for the Farmer Brothers? Apparently not since none of the members have stated a reason. I hope citizens will ask council members why they did not give a reason for voting a secret tax and what that reason could be. It is apparent that there is not a good reason and that council members are not working for taxpayers, but for members of the Chamber of Commerce.