In the special local option sales tax arena, it’s the current Fayette County Commission versus Fayette Citizens for Open Government (FayCOG), which includes a couple of former county commission chairmen.

Up next for FayCOG is a campaign designed to neutralize the county’s upcoming 1-cent sales tax initiative.

At the FayCOG meeting last week FayCOG co-founder and former commission Chairman Harold Bost suggested, and others agreed, to get their message out through a mailer. Bost presented a check for $2,000 and a sample half-page mailer, saying that he wanted to do his part to demonstrate how strongly he feels about defeating the SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) initiative. Bost said the mailer would cost approximately $10,000 in production and postage if it were sent to 25,000 households.

The mailer contained a significant amount of detail on the SPLOST project. After some discussion, the consensus of the group held that the message should be sharpened and that it should be mailed to residents who vote regularly.

The group agreed that mid-October should be a tentative target date for the mailer.

Also at the meeting, FayCOG member and former commission Chairman Greg Dunn said nothing in the SPLOST proposal is critical, and that is it a freebie for the cities. He also had a comment for the proposed $2 million emergency operations center. Fayette is not the center of the universe when it comes to emergency operations functions in metro Atlanta, he said.

“The operations center is (Fayette County Administrator Jack) Krakeel’s favorite project. He brought it up for years and we said no,” Dunn said.

Commenting further on the upcoming vote, Bost said 1-cent on the purchase of a $40,000 vehicle equals $400. Referencing the long list of SPLOST proposals Bost likened them to a laundry list of items whose time had not come.

“If it’s for a good reason, then okay. But why pay for a bunch of stuff like this?” he asked. “We’ve got to raise the awareness of the community.”

Dunn also gave his impression of the need for the 1-cent sales tax.

“If SPLOST is a no-go, you won’t notice any change in how we live now,” he said, adding that some of the proposed SPLOST projects will be needed at some point in the future. Dunn added that the county might be better served to wait for two or three years to have a 1-cent sales tax due to the recession.

The SPLOST is projected to raise up to $135 million over a six-year timeframe if it is approved by voters in November.

The county is proposing to spend $30.5 million on a variety of specific transportation and building projects, $11 million on unspecified transportation projects, $5 million on a speculative university campus, $2 million on an emergency operations center, $3.5 million for the replacement of two fire stations in Tyrone and Fayetteville and a host of other projects specific to the county’s various municipalities.

The SPLOST vote is actually round two for the tax. Residents already are paying an extra one cent on retail sales for the current SPLOST, which expires within months.

Proceeds from the current SPLOST have been used for numerous road-building projects, most controversially the West Fayette Bypass now under construction.

The November SPLOST referendum seeks to renew that expiring sales tax for another six years.