[Vote] Article from IN-FORUM

[Duke]

Tax backers plan campaign
Craig McEwen
The Forum - 03/14/2008

A Cass County citizens group that supports a half-cent sales tax increase to fund economic development will aggressively recruit North Dakota State University students to help pass the measure, Fargo/Cass Forward chairman Bernie Dardis said Thursday. 
Were going to concentrate on young people, Dardis told members of the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corp., the agency directing the sales tax effort.
Cass County voters will decide on June 10 whether to approve the tax increase that would raise $9.5 million annually through 2020 to bring high-tech industries and jobs to Cass County.
Were going to have a very aggressive get-out-the-vote at the NDSU campus  everything from rides, providing absentee ballots and those types of things, he said. We will have an absentee ballot program second to no political campaign thats ever been run in Cass County. 
Fargo/Cass Forward members have been meeting with local residents in meet-and-greet sessions of up to 10 people to present the sales tax initiative and answer questions, Dardis said. 
That effort is directed at adult residents whose children and grandchildren may return to Cass County to work in jobs potentially created as a result of the economic development initiative, he said.
The Fargo/Cass Forward campaign will use lots of faces, Dardis said.
Make no mistake, it will be orchestrated, it will be choreographed in the sense of the message, he said.    
The group launched its Web site, www.fargocassforward.
com, on Wednesday.
I appreciate all the work that you and the members of your committee are doing, said Lauris Molbert, EDC board chairman.
Questions have been raised about how the job creation initiative affects those who dont work in tech-related industries, said EDC board member and Cass County commissioner Scott Wagner.
Were trying to find emerging primary-sector industries as we see the global economy shift, Wagner said. New job creation creates new opportunities, and continued opportunities, in the construction industry, financial services, retail and commercial sectors. It affects everybody.


Readers can reach Forum Business Editor Craig McEwen at (701) 241-5502
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