Maryville passes 3% marijuana sales tax

Maryville voted yes on Proposition “M” at the April 4 General Municipal Election. Municipal elections are held to elect local governing officials.

After Amendment 3, which allows people 21 or older to recreationally use marijuana, passed Nov. 8, 2022, cities and counties were given the option to charge up to a 3% sales tax. City Manager Greg McDanel gave a presentation on what this would entail and any background information on it. The Maryville City Council passed the ordinance to add Proposition “M” to the ballot at the Jan. 9 meeting.

“There’s more than several (cities ap- plying this tax), there’s probably a couple dozen, at least,” McDanel said.

All retail sales in Maryville will now have a 3% tax that will go towards the General Fund. This will not apply to medical marijuana and is estimated to generate around $150,000 or more per year.

“The additional revenue would go to the General Fund, which supports critical services — police, fire, street maintenance in the city of Maryville,” McDanel said at the Jan. 9 City Council Meeting.

The General Fund is the main operating fund of the city and accounts for revenues.

As Maryville voters cast their ballots, the question proposing the sales tax received 505 votes to pass it and 72 votes against it based on unofficial results throughout the four precincts. If the tax is passed after the official results are released, it will go into effect Oct. 1.

“I believe research probably shows in Colorado that the communities that passed the sales tax earlier on were in a better position to go ahead and take advantage of the initial sales tax,” McDanel said at the Jan. 9 City Council meeting.

All precincts voted on different representatives for its specific area and the Nodaway County Health representative for all precincts.

Council members are rotated on a three year cycle, with only a couple being replaced or rerunning at a time. Two City Council members ran for reelection, Bryan Williams and Benjamin Lipiec.

Mozingo Lake Recreation Park was utilized to run Atlantic Hope, a simulated disaster training experience for students and other volunteers overseen by the Consortium for Humanitarian Service and Education March 30 through April 2.

The simulated situation takes place in a country overseas about to go into civil war, but an earthquake strikes. The students take the role of humanitarians who have come to the country to help. Throughout the fourday excursion, multiple scenarios and specific training are presented to the volunteers to teach them task and process skills ranging from radio operations, figuring out the needs of the people they’re helping, negotiation, leadership and communication.

Mariah Weaver, a Northwest student volunteer, said she volunteered for the event for her major, emergency and disaster management as well as the importance that she sees in the event. She said the conflict resolution is something especially important for volunteers to understand and the event helps cover that by making sure volunteers watch what they say and utilize critical thinking.

“The … good part is watching participants grow,” Weaver said. “They all come in terrified, they come out a little more confident than they were when they first came in.”

This critical thinking and watching what you say was tested when the trainees had to participate in the search and rescue simulation where they had to find fakely injured roleplayers in vegetation. These roleplayers were previously prepared for this simulation by being made to look injured with fake blood and makeup.

Professor and Department Chair for Natural Sciences Mark Corson said Atlantic Hope was created by a man named Paul Forage, and Atlantic Hope was a driving factor into the creation of Northwest’s emergency and disaster management major and minor. This event has also been utilized as profession-based learning for field experience hours needed for the emergency and disaster management program curriculum.

“We started taking students and the students were like, ‘we want to do this,’” Corson said. “So, we created the major and then the students demanded that we create the minor. I think the biggest thing about the EDM program … is it’s really about serving others, selfless service.”

Northwest allows Atlantic Hope to utilize the Mozingo Lake Recreation Park Youth Camp, as well as its Outdoor Education and Recreation Area. This support allows the staff for Atlantic Hope to be able to have the transportation, land and buildings with utilities they need. From all over the United States, people have chosen to come to this event to volunteer their labor willingly unpaid.