DUTCHTOWN UNANIMOUSLY APPROVES SALES TAX TO BUILD LEVEE

DUTCHTOWN, Mo. -- By a count of 12-0, Dutchtown voters approved Tuesday a new sales tax intended to help protect the town from future floods.

The Dutchtown Board of Trustees asked voters to approve the 1-cent sales tax Tuesday to fund the town's share of building an earthen levee to hold back the Diversion channel floodwaters south of town.

The measure required only a simple majority to pass. The village of 104 people has 50 registered voters.

Bob Moss, a businessman and former town board member who worked on behalf of the measure, said the vote indicates the community's unity on the project all along. "I'm gratified the citizens of Dutchtown are that concerned about the problem we're facing with the flooding," he said. "Everything we have done has been unanimous all along -- incorporating, everything. Everyone has worked together. That makes it better."

Dutchtown has been flooded four times since 1973. The town incorporated in 1998 for the purpose of acquiring a flood control levee.

Dutchtown's share of the $800,000 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project is $40,000, or 5 percent.

Dutchtown's six businesses will begin levying the tax Jan. 1. It will remain in effect after the levee is built to help maintain the structure. The amount of money the tax will raise is unknown. Eventually the tax money could be used to build the town a sewer system, city leaders have said.