The third road referendum question asked if voters would support an annual $56 vehicle registration fee, or “wheel tax,” on cars and light trucks, which would raise $5 million per year. With all precincts reporting, the vote was 37,918 to 17,510 against the wheel tax, with more than 68 percent voting no.

The final transportation funding referendum question basically asked voters if they would support a 15 percent increase in their county property taxes — roughly $156 per year on a home of average value — to raise the targeted $5 million per year. While state levy limits normally wouldn’t allow such a large increase in property taxes, the county could do it by borrowing the money because the state has no levy limits on county and municipal debt service.

Voters were strongly opposed to the property tax option, with almost 74 percent (40,588 to 14,387) of the early vote going against the idea.

With so much of the vote yet to be counted, Johnson was unsure of what the ultimate message from the electorate would be, but she emphasized that it was a worthwhile exercise to conduct the referendum. “We were especially interested in having voters do what they did today, which is give us some idea of which choices are most palatable to them. It is a very important part of the equation moving forward,” she said.

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