Voters are deciding on a proposal to raise the sales tax one percent. The idea is to raise $120 million or more over the next five years to buy farmland and conservation areas before developers can continue a rapid land-buy.

The money would also be specificially earmarked for modest infrastructure upgrades to ease growing traffic congestion in the northern half of St. Johns County.

"This is a tough economy. No business can afford this right now," Americans for Prosperity state director Adam Guillette said at a debate moderated by WOKV's Jared Halpern Thursday night. "I cannot imagine that raising the sales tax will do anything but hurt tourism. To think otherwise flies in the face of the economic reality."

Americans for Prosperity are waging a major phone call and mailer campaign against the sales tax proposal.

"Almost everytime you see a one cent sales tax increase somewhere the come back and say what? 'It's gonna cost more than we thought'," Guillette said.

St. Johns County commissioner Ron Sanchez supported putting the proposal on the fall ballot and believes if voters knew what was at stake, they'd support a one-penny tax increase.

"My main issue is with the farmers," Sanchez said during the Thursday forum. "I'm trying to save that land from being developed. I just can't live with that."

Sanchez says fewer and fewer family farms can survive with the influx of developers buying up large swaths of land.

"You see houses popping up everywhere," he said. "There's already 14 developments on [State Road] 207 approved by a previous commission. We have some 70-thousand homes approved in our county, ladies and gentlemen."

A majority of voters at Thursday's debate oppose a tax increase of any kind.

"It makes me angry because my neighbors are losing their homes, losing their jobs and having their hours cut," Flagler Estates resident Candy Nelson said.

Others are backing the effort as a way to keep St. Johns County from becoming what some call a Jacksonville junior.

"The developers say that Racetrack road will become like Butler Boulevard," Roger Van Ghent said. Van Ghent is a member of St. Johns Forever; a citizens group mounting it's own effort to rally support for the sales tax increase.

A recent poll published in The St. Augustine Record indicates only about 40 percent of voters are in favor of adding a penny to the sales tax.

WOKV