Senior citizens who live in Sitka will remain exempt from paying sales tax. The Sitka Assembly rejected changes to the tax code that would have limited the exemption to those with lower incomes.

At a special meeting Tuesday night, they said the ordinance they ended up with was just too complicated.

A unanimous vote killed the measure, but the idea of changing the tax code is still very much alive.

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Tuesday night’s Assembly meeting began at 6 p.m. and only took about an hour. That is blindingly fast compared to most meetings. So when Nancy Yaw Davis walked in around 7 p.m., she probably expected to catch the beginning of debate on the senior citizen sales tax exemption. Instead, she arrived just in time for the last part of the meeting, when the Assembly allows public comments on any topic.

“My name is Nancy Yaw Davis, and I was born and raised here, and came back three years ago, and I have a magic number.”

She pulled out the wallet-sized card bearing that magic number, which declares her exempt from sales tax.

“Well, when I first heard about this big debate, I wanted to come down and burn this thing, but I knew it would smell too badly,” Yaw Davis said.

Instead, she walked to the front of the room, and handed her card to the mayor. She said she didn’t need it anymore. She can afford to pay sales tax. And that she wanted to talk about the proposed changes to the senior sales tax exemption.

Mayor Cheryl Westover: Well, we voted it down tonight.
Yaw Davis: You voted it down? Oh!
Municipal Administrator Jim Dinley: There’s no giving it back. You lost it. (laughter)

The mayor did give her card back, but Yaw Davis says she won’t use it anymore. She said she’s happy to pay.

Even though limiting the exemption to low-income seniors is now off the table, the Assembly could still make changes to the sales tax code. Yaw Davis had a few ideas for the future.

“We can move on to new topics? There’s lots of things. Does it mean that alcohol will be taxed?” she asked. “That those of us that have the privilege of being able to buy alcohol will pay sales tax, am I right?”

Westover says the issue will likely come before the Assembly in the future, yes.

“Well it’s about time that topic comes up,” Yaw Davis said. “When I found out that we have a tobacco tax, of $1 a pack, and that goes directly to the hospital, why don’t we have a booze tax for us all, including the seniors, that allows those monies to go directly to the city?”

The city budget is balanced, thanks to an infusion of cash from the state, and hefty cuts made across all departments. But even fiscally conservative Assembly members have said there’s a need to bring in more money, especially to establish a fund for maintenance on Sitka’s infrastructure. City officials have said they’re scrambling to come up with the money necessary for roads that are beginning to crack and crumble.

How they’ll come up with that money isn’t known. What is clear is that if they try to change the senior exemption again, they can expect major blowback. The ordinance that died Tuesday night underwent six months of debate and amendment, and brought testimony and letters from scores of residents.

It was contentious and, at times, a little heated, but Assembly member Pete Esquiro says it was not a waste of time.

“I think the people of Sitka are more aware of the problems that we as a city, as a group of people living together, are facing,” Esquiro said. “I have had people – not only senior citizens, but from all aspects of life here – tell me that ‘We realize what the problem is here in Sitka now.’”

Esquiro says it will be up to the Assembly and the community at large to slow down, take a deep breath, and keep looking for real solutions.