Dear Branson Community,
Congratulations to everyone involved with National Night out this week. We had 13 neighborhoods participate and we greatly appreciate the camaraderie shared by citizens, businesses, staff, and elected officials. I was able to visit four neighborhoods in the two-hour event and enjoyed meeting with many of you and talking about the future of our great city. I am proud of our awesome citizen base.
Our Planning Commission met this week to discuss a number of issues. One such issue will amend Resolution 12-1.10 which will allow multiple animals to be housed and exhibited on the south side of Branson's Wild World. Proposed animals include lions, tigers, ligers, wolves, kangaroos, servals, foxes, porcupines, jackals, and various birds. For additional details, you can read the staff report found in this meeting’s agenda, or you can watch a recording of the livestream of this meeting on the City’s website.
Our involved Chamber of Commerce continues to celebrate new members. Celebrity Lounge had a ribbon-cutting this week and Branson Security Plus will have one next week. Congratulations on becoming new members of the Chamber and taking advantage of all the great services it has to offer.
If you shop online, you might have noticed that October 5 was "Amazon Prime Day." It appears this started as an anniversary day for Amazon's 20th birthday in 2015. It has been amazing to watch the growth of Amazon over these last 25 years. It is also unfortunate to realize that the citizens of Branson are not reaping the rewards of this service like most of the rest of the country. What we need is a state-wide "Use Tax" which is a sales tax imposed on the purchase of goods by residents from out-of-state vendors. These taxes are charged at the same rate of a local sales tax but they are not charged simultaneously. The bottom line is that the city of Branson currently loses money on every item purchased online which is an annual loss of approximately $600,000 each year. This number will continue to rise as more and more people seem to be shopping online.
We continue to prepare to transfer the recycle center to Taney County. During the first two weeks of our temporary opening, we have averaged 50 users a day with 75% of the users from outside the city limits. As I understand, there is a lot of construction going on at the County Transfer Station which will host the recycle center.
For those of you who have an affiliation with the U.S. Navy, I want to wish you and your Shipmates a very Happy 245th Birthday next week on October 13. While we may be landlocked, the U.S. Navy and the State of Missouri have a great shared past, specifically with the USS Missouri. This was the last battleship commissioned and the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan, ending World War II.
Thank you to those who continue to pray for our city. Please stay positive and be thankful for living in the best city in America. Thank you for letting me serve you,
Mayor Edd Akers