Local News
Fargo’s Mayor speaks out after Fargodome vote fails
By 
Part-time reporter
Fargo, North Dakota – The city of Fargo must start over after their plans to expand Fargodome were rejected in a special election on Tuesday night. To renovate the Dome and build a nearby conference center in the north of the city, Fargo requested $140 million.
According to Valley News Live on Wednesday, local officials will need to meet together to determine how to reach the 60 percent mark and approve the vote. According to city officials, there were a few reasons why the vote was just 51.7% and not at least 60%. The increase in the sales tax was one of them. The sales tax would have increased by a quarter of a percent over the following 20 years to 7.75%, but inflation has already begun to affect people’s finances.
“It’s been a difficult year, inflation is high, I don’t think that people have a lot of disposable money, they felt hurt, they’re not doing as many things as they do. So apart of it is the climate, we’re a little adverse to taxes right now. because of where our economy sits right now,” says Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney.
An alternative proposal that municipal officials suggest is to choose between putting a new convention center and an enlargement of the Fargodome on the ballot.
Mahoney says: “So you might put it out as here do you just want to remodel the Fargodome ‘cause there may be some people that, that’s really what they want. The convention center has always been controversial, and in my mind that’s kind of one of the issues you have. Some people understand it or don’t understand it. The idea of combining the two was that you could use the same staff.”
Not as many people cast ballots as city officials had anticipated. In total, there were less than 8,000 votes cast.
According to Mayor Mahoney, there is a chance that the subject will be posed again in June and that we may hear about discussions about holding another Fargodome expansion vote soon. According to him, statistics indicate that more people turn out to vote in those elections, which could result in more yes votes as well as no votes.
