{"id":735,"date":"2006-10-18T07:55:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-18T13:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/10\/commission-considers-tax-hike-for-spaceport\/"},"modified":"2006-10-18T07:55:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-18T13:55:00","slug":"commission-considers-tax-hike-for-spaceport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/10\/commission-considers-tax-hike-for-spaceport\/","title":{"rendered":"Commission considers tax hike for spaceport"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Fresh off this week\u2019s International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight<\/a> and Wirefly X Prize Cup<\/a>, the Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners will consider Tuesday starting the process of raising the gross receipts tax to help fund Spaceport America<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Commissioner Bill McCamley will make a presentation on the spaceport. He will also ask his peers to approve a resolution that supports the creation of a spaceport taxing district and directs staff to draft an ordinance that would take the 1\/4 percent gross receipts tax increase proposal to voters.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

If approved by commissioners Tuesday and with a later vote formally approving the ordinance, a special election would be held on April 3.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The last gross receipts tax increase, for public safety, amounted to a 1\/8 percent hike.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Though the Nov. 7 general election and a school board election are being held before April 3, McCamley said he didn\u2019t want the spaceport tax on either ballot so that it isn\u2019t politicized by candidates whose names also appear on those ballots.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an important enough issue that we want it to be on its own ballot,\u201d McCamley said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The tax would generate between $6 million and $6.5 million each year in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>, McCamley said, with 3\/4 of that money going to the spaceport. The other 1\/4 would be divided among the Las Cruces<\/st1:city>, Gadsden<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and Hatch school districts according to population.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The school districts would be required to use the money to create \u201cspaceport academies,\u201d McCamley said. The goal is to have local \u201cengineering and entrepreneurial programs based on the space industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The academies would be part of a larger effort to educate area students in a field in which local jobs are being created, and give more young people a chance to stay here after they complete college degrees. New Mexico<\/st1:placename> State<\/st1:placetype> University<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> recently started its own aerospace engineering program.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cOur biggest export is our talent,\u201d McCamley said. \u201cA lot of people go even though they want to stay, because they can\u2019t find good, quality jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

McCamley has already made his presentation to the Associated Students of NMSU and earned that body\u2019s support, and makes his presentation to the NMSU Board of Regents on Friday.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The commission meeting will be held at the Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename> Government<\/st1:placename> Center<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> on Motel Boulevard<\/st1:address><\/st1:street> and starts at 9 a.m. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fresh off this week\u2019s International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight and Wirefly X Prize Cup, the Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners will consider Tuesday starting the process of raising the gross receipts tax to help fund Spaceport America. Commissioner Bill McCamley will make a presentation on the spaceport. He will also ask his peers to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}