Will Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber support 1/4 cent sales tax increase?

You'd think it would be a done deal. But you could be wrong.

Over pizza at IP3 today, Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber CEO Aaron Nelson told me he doesn't know if his board will go to bat again for the quarter-center sales tax increase.

"It shouldn't be assumed we're for it again," he said. 

Nelson later clarified that he doesn't know how his board will vote. The Chamber's executive committee is expected to discuss the proposed tax increase, which will be on this fall's ballot, for the first time Wednesday morning.

The county intends to put half the revenue into schools and half into economic development, which is why you'd think the chamber would be gung ho. But voters rejected it 51 to 49 percent last fall and, well, there's not a lot to suggest sentiment has changed.    

Commissioners voted 5-2, with Earl McKee and Valerie Fousheee opposed, to put the referendum on the Nov. 8 ballot. McKee said putting the referendum to voters in a municipal election year when only town board seats are up and rural voters have less reason to go to the polls gives the impression the county is trying to get around the rural vote, which helped defeat the measure last time.