Anderson has 44.79 percent of the county’s population, so the vote of the Anderson City Council represents 44.79 percent of the vote.

In order to pass the COIT, Anderson would only need another 7 percent. Elwood has 7.3 votes, enough to pass the COIT with Anderson.

If Elwood votes against the COIT, Savage said, Alexandria’s 4.69 votes and Pendleton’s 2.9 votes would be enough to join Anderson in passing the COIT increase.

Since neither Anderson nor Elwood is willing to propose the increase, the task may fall to Alexandria.

Earlier this week, Alexandria Mayor Jack Woods told The Herald Bulletin that he expected to discuss the COIT soon. “I think we’re going to go ahead and discuss it at the next council meeting. Maybe even take a vote, I don’t know.”

Woods is the first county mayor to suggest openly discussing the COIT at a council meeting, but did not suggest that his council would approve of the increase. “It’s going to come around anyway.”

Alexandria is facing a budget deficit of $600,000 over the next two years. “I don’t support any new taxes, no, but as a mayor, we have to keep Alexandria going. If we’re not going to get other funding from the state, we’ll have to look at other ways to do it.”

In Elwood, Taylor said he was frustrated with the state for putting local towns in such a position. Elwood must cut $1.3 million over the next two years.

“Here we are throwing everything back on John Q Public. We’ve got this rainy-day fund of $1 billion, and we could use it on the local level.”

The state’s surplus, he said, should be used to help towns cope with sudden budget cuts in the wake of property tax caps. “How you can sit and say we’ve got a billion in reserve and yet cities and towns are suffering?”

No matter what Alexandria, Anderson and Elwood decide to do about the COIT, the county council won’t likely vote in favor of it, Savage said. “I don’t think we could get enough votes to pass it again. The general consensus is the county council, the members have felt like at the time, we felt like we had helped the county and all the cities in the county by passing the wheel tax for road repair.”

“The county would appreciate somebody else stepping to the plate to carry this ball,” Savage said.