Greenville County voters on Tuesday decisively rejected a 1 percent sales tax to pay for road improvements, leaving no clear plan for improving the county’s deteriorating transportation infrastructure.
With 79 percent of precincts reporting at 9:50 p.m. Tuesday night, the sales tax plan was losing 65 percent to 35 percent.
A majority of Greenville County Council saw the tax plan as the only realistic option for improving roads in the wake of indecision in Columbia and voted to put the question to county voters in Tuesday’s referendum.
The tax would have lasted eight years or until a little more than $673 million had been raised to pay for a long list of improvements compiled by a special citizens committee.
County residents such as Greenville retiree Joan Gilley had different ideas, however.
Gilley said she voted against the plan because groceries would have been subject to the tax.
“Until I know that’s taken out, I will not vote for it,” she told The Greenville News shortly after casting her ballot at Hampton Park Baptist Church.
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South Carolina Association of Taxpayers 