By Ryan Lewis
Correspondent
JASPER, Tenn. -- While city officials agree that tapping into future growth at exit 158 on Interstate 24 is important for the city's coffers, some say now is not the time to annex the area.
"We've got to look at growth," Alderman Paul Evans said at the March meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen. "Our revenue depends on growth either in property tax, sales tax or whatever. We're stagnating right now."
Mr. Evans said development in the exit 158 area, just west of Nickajack Lake, would create revenue for Jasper and could create competition with exit 152 businesses in Kimball.
Though they said they see the need for expansion, other Jasper officials said it's just not the right time.
"Any annexation process with the existing businesses that are there now would not reap one cent of sales tax dollars for 15 years," Mayor Billy Simpson said. "And I don't see anything developing out there right now."
In the late 1990s, state lawmakers passed a growth law that made it easier for cities to annex. But to prevent tax grabs, they said cities couldn't collect tax revenues from existing businesses in annexed areas for 15 years.
Alderman Leon Rash said the city and its residents have more pressing issues that trump any annexation moves.
"I'm all for annexation, but I'm also for paving the streets in Jasper," he said. "I do not want to do anything that would put a burden on the city residents of Jasper, and I don't plan to."
Since the Rarity Club home and golf course development went into foreclosure last year, the expected growth in the area has come to a standstill, officials said.
"With Rarity, if there's evidence that things are really going to start growing out there, then maybe you make a move, but right now there's not anything that I know of," Jasper City Attorney Zach Kelly said.
"If, at some point, it becomes a possibility, and you have the revenue to pay for it, then it's something you'd want to give some consideration to," he said.
Mr. Simpson said the current state of the economy doesn't lend itself to growth at this time. He estimates that if the city annexed the area known as Cedar Grove near U.S. Highway 41 and exit 158, the city's revenue would increase by less than $6,000.
"The figures just don't add up right now," he said.
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.