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Friday, 10/01/04 I read with interest Mark Cook's column in Williamson A.M. (9-23-04). While Wal-Mart has been in Franklin longer than most of the people who live here now, Wal-Mart did not start out at the Trees and Trends location. In fact, it started in Independence Square, which was the subject of the headline story in the paper that day. Some merchants who struggled after Wal-Mart's first relocation from Independence Square are now abandoning Independence Square and moving to the new Harpeth Village on Hillsboro Road. While I applaud the brownfield development of Harpeth Village on the old KMart property yes there was a KMart there decades ago as Wal-Mart has moved from Independence Square to Alexander Plaza to Williamson Square to the Super Center in Cool Springs. Each move left mom-and-pop tenants struggling to survive and large areas of asphalt adding to storm water runoff problems. Like the successful mega corporation it is, the biggest of the ''big box'' boys is ever eyeing other locations. Hopefully stymied in their march onto the Columbia Avenue battlefield site at Through The Green, Wal-Mart is scouting land near the scenic Natchez Trace Parkway. While growth may be inevitable, I know that it does not pay for itself my rising property taxes tell me so. Wal-Mart's corporate mouth is watering because of all the residential roofs Franklin has raised in the past decade. Westhaven, a huge mega subdivision on West Highway 96, was approved by the former growth-gorging group running Franklin's city hall. Now the commercial hawks are coming to roost on those rooftops. It is high time to make new commercial growth pay for the privilege of reaping the profits of all the residences and schools our county has to offer by making NEW commercial construction ante its fair share into the county's coffers. Enough signatures were recently gathered in opposition to county commissioners increasing the wheel tax so the issue is now on the November ballot. Taxpayers and voters want our elected county officials to find other sources of revenue to fund the escalating costs of running the county. The county can use what it has had the ability to do since 1988 to pay for growth. The county can assess a fee on the square footage of new commercial construction inside the cities. It could and should have been doing this the whole time the commercial boom was hitting Cool Springs and Spring Hill, but it has chosen not to tax the commercial growth, but to tax the people. According to the county, the wheel tax hike and a property tax hike are seen as the only options for funding county services. The truth is the county commissioners need to raise the commercial impact fee for all the NEW commercial construction coming into our county. This is a one-time fee only. At least they should make the new commercial growth pay a few more dollars for the privilege of profiting from all the houses that have been built and the new children we must school. We may not be able to stop the Wal-Marts of the world from putting up parking lots on what is left of our paradise, but the least we can do is make them pay for the privilege of benefiting from our ever-growing population. We can still learn the lesson that growth does not pay for itself. If growth paid for itself we should be receiving large tax rebates, instead of going to the polls this November to vote or whether we should continue to tax ourselves by raising the wheel tax. County officials can and should raise impact fees on new commercial development. Just imagine how much could have been collected from the each construction fee from the many moves of Wal-Mart. Raising the wheel tax would also have the negative side effect of potentially lowering the number of people who would continue to purchase specialty license tags. I, for one, have an ''Animal Friendly'' tag and last year I know that tag's funding paid to spay and neuter over 6,000 dogs and cats to prevent the growth of unwanted pets. Wal-Mart and county officials would benefit by reading the book Better Not Bigger How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community by Eben Fordor. You just might have trouble finding Wal-Mart. Laura Turner |
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