Former senator clarifies his position at Aurora town hall
Former Dist. 34 Sen. Curt Friesen spoke up at a meeting Thursday in Aurora focused on the proposed Aurora city sales tax, saying he felt compelled to clarify his work while in office to reduce the state’s burden on property taxes.
Noting that he has no skin in the game regarding the Aurora proposal since he lives in rural Henderson, Friesen said he read his name in last week’s ANR and wanted to address comments attributed to him by Aurora Mayor Marlin Seeman.
“I would not come to a meeting like this, but I read my name on the front page of the newspaper so I thought I’d stop and kind of clarify my position,” Friesen said to an audience of 50 people gathered at the Bremer Center.
Seeman was explaining his rationale for supporting the proposed 1-1/2 percent sales tax when he made a reference to efforts in the Nebraska Legislature, both this year and in previous years, to reduce the state’s reliance on property taxes.
“We need to let the citizens in May look at the governor’s encouragement and Sen. Friesen’s encouragement for eight years,” Seeman said. “They’ve been challenging government like us to reduce our reliance on property taxes and replacing that with sales tax, basically because that’s the only other option we have because we don’t have the ability to generate income tax.”
Friesen said he spent six years on the Revenue Committee, four as vice chairman, where lawmakers spent a lot of time discussing tax policy. He said finding revenue to replace property taxes is a tough issue, though at no point did he lobby for increased city sales taxes.
“It’s been brought up numerous times that it is a regressive tax instead of a progressive tax, impacting the poor and fixed-income people more than it does anyone else,” Friesen said. “That’s one of the reasons why I think it had trouble in Lincoln is that you’ve been cutting income taxes, which I would say benefits the rich more, and you were lowering that income tax rate. Now we’re trying to find money for property tax relief and we’re going to raise the sales tax, which again hits low income and fixed-income people harder. It is difficult. But again, I have never, ever once I don’t think I’ve ever uttered the words that I was upset about what city rates were on levies, or counties, because it’s a very local issue. I have not ever said that I wanted to raise sales taxes or anything like that to lower a city of county property tax.”
Friesen went on to say that he often spoke of Aurora while serving as a state senator, using it as an example for others to follow.
“Many times in Lincoln I spoke of Aurora and how you guys did not have a 1-1/2 percent sales tax and how proud you were of the fact that you were a low-tax city,” he said. “You use that to attract business here and there are hundreds of communities what would love to have the success that you guys have had. I don’t know what your secret sauce is, but it’s working.”