City Election Results: Half-Cent Sales Tax Approved

The two Kirksville City Council seats up for re-election were filled with their incumbents in Tuesday’s municipal election, while the citywide Parks and Recreation half-cent sales tax was approved.

Council members Rick Steele and Jerry Mills retained their seats with Kevin Alm falling short in his bid for one of the open seats. Additionally, the city’s proposed half-cent sales tax, which would go toward funding a new aquatic center among other things, passed at the polls.

Nan Davis, Jeremy Houser and Adam Moore won the three open seats on the Kirksville R-III school board.

The members of Kirksville’s City Council will remain the same for at least the next year as Steele and Mills finished first and second, respectively, in the race, with Alm finishing in third place. Mills, who has served as mayor of Kirksville for the past year, will begin his third three-year term as a member of the Council. Mills received 41.9 percent of votes on the 2,187 ballots cast, on which voters were instructed to pick two candidates per ballot. Steele prevailed in his first re-election bid, and will begin his second term on the Council. He received 46.15 percent of the vote. Alm came in third with an even 400 votes, or 10.83 percent.

The proposed Parks and Recreation sales tax was approved by a large margin, 68.7 percent to 31.3 percent. 2,187 votes were cast. The tax will be an increase of one-half of one percent to the city’s existing sales tax. Kirksville’s sales tax currently stands at 7.85 percent, according to Assistant City Manager Ashley Young in a presentation about the proposal. With the passage of the new tax, sales tax will increase to 8.35 percent. The city intends to use the increased revenue to fund Parks and Recreation operations exclusively within the City of Kirksville, including maintenance, staffing and programming. Notably, some of the revenue will be used to fund construction of a new aquatic center, which the department estimates would cost between four million and seven million dollars.

In the Kirksville R-III School Board election, Jeremy Houser and Adam Moore were elected to serve three-year terms on the board. In addition, Nan Davis, incumbent secretary of the school board, won her re-election bid. Davis led the six-person race, in which 2,581 ballots were cast and voters were instructed to pick three candidates per ballot. The candidates finishing in the top three spots will become members of the school board. Davis gathered 20.72 percent of votes, while Houser and Moore received 19.91 and 18.61 percent, respectively. The three unsuccessful candidates in the close race were Tarasa Gardner, Matthew Copeland and Kathy Hoppe. 26 votes separated Moore, the third-place candidate, and Gardner, the fourth-place candidate.