Atlantans Approve Water/Sewer Sales Tax Extension

East Atlanta resident Kelli Kirkpatrick didn't hesitate.

When she cast her ballot Tuesday at her polling precinct at Burgess-Peterson Academy late Tuesday morning, she said one of her main concerns was her water rate.

She voted in favor of reauthorizing the one-cent municipal option sales tax — MOST — that aims to keep water rates down.

The Department of Watershed Management projects that without the renewal of the tax, Kirkpatrick and others faced water rate increases of 25 to 30 percent.

“The Department of Watershed Management’s five-year strategic financial model shows the department is headed in the right direction as we continue to make tremendous progress in upgrading our water and sewer infrastructure as required under two federal consent decrees,” Atlanta City Councilwoman Natalyn Archibong, who sponsored the measure, said.

Atlanta voters already reauthorized MOST in 2008 after first voting for it in 2004.

This next MOST authorization, if approved, would be for another four-year-period and is projected to generate up to $750 million on top of the $700 million generated in the first two authorizations.

How Atlanta voted on MOST

**Results reflect portion of Atlanta in Fulton County only. In Atlanta-in-DeKalb, 16.6% of registered voters cast ballots in the MOST initiative. Of that , 89.7 percent voted in favor, 10.3 percent voted against.