Comptroller Darlene Green has accepted an invitation to deliver the keynote address to a group that is opposing a ballot initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot in Missouri designed to eliminate the earnings tax in St. Louis and Kansas City and prevent a similar tax being enacted in any other municipality in the state.
Green will speak 8-10 a.m. Friday, October 1 to the Workers’ Rights Board, a project of St. Louis Jobs with Justice, at the Old North Restoration Group building, 2700 North 14th Street.
“It is with great pleasure that we learned from Workers’ Right Board member State Representative Jeanette Mott Oxford of your opposition to the Sinquefield ballot initiative to repeal the St. Louis earnings tax,” Green was told by the board co-chairs, MartÃn Rafanan.
Green opposes the initiative, funded and promoted by billionaire Rex Sinquefield, because it is the single largest and most reliable revenue stream the City of St. Louis has for funding government services, such as police and fire protection.
Mayor Francis G. Slay, who counts Sinquefield as his single largest campaign donor, as been quiet about the initiative, though he has admitted on his campaign site that he has no plan for replacing the lost revenue.
If the measure, Proposition A, passes on Nov. 2, then St. Louis voters would face it on the April 2011 ballot and then every five years after that.
Green’s editorial arguing for voters to oppose Prop A will appear in this Thursday’s St. Louis American (Sept. 2).
