By NICOLE CARTRETTE
Staff Writer

Cerro Gordo officials are looking for some tax relief for residents.

Columbus County Commissioner Ricky Bullard said Monday he had received a request that the town residents not have to pay special taxes on property there.

Residents within the town limits appear to be paying special county Water District II taxes although Cerro Gordo operates its own public water system and has since 1990, according to a letter drafted by Mayor Sonny Hammond.

“It’s truly taxation without representation,” Hammond said Thursday (today.)

Fair Bluff and Boardman are exempt from the District II property tax, Hammond explained.

“The citizens of Cerro Gordo will never be water customers of Water District II.

“Therefore we respectfully ask that the tax parcels in our town be exempted from District II tax, just as Boardman and Fair Bluff have been exempted,” Hammond writes.

Bullard, who represents District 6, and portions of Cerro Gordo, received the letter and asked that the matter be investigated. The Board of Commissioners took no formal action.

Details about the tax applying to Cerro Gordo are unclear.

A map from the county management information systems (MIS) shows Cerro Gordo as a non-county water district area like Fair Bluff and Boardman.

County Tax Administrator Richard Gore was out of the office Tuesday and Wednesday.

Water District II special taxes are 9 cents per $100 value. Taxes make up $320,026 of the district’s revenue and account for slightly more than 44 percent of the district’s $721,326 budget.

It is unclear how much of the tax revenue comes from property taxes within the Cerro Gordo city limits.