“I do know my wife went into a business yesterday, and this gentleman, he said he sure hopes (if we ran a use tax), it passes because it affects his business,” said Presiding Commissioner Steve Black.

The commissioners believe that they didn’t do a good job educating the public on the use tax in 2025, and that is why it failed.

“Yeah, we probably didn’t do a very good job educating last time,” Black said. “But evidently we’re not alone because we know other counties (that) it’s taken six plus tries to get it passed. So we’re not alone on that educational front.”

Local resident Mike Lovell brought up the thought that use tax education might need to be directed to a certain demographic.

Before the Dec. 23, 2025, meeting started, Black and Associate Commissioner of District 1 Mark Pfeiffer had mentioned that they are just as surprised at what their kids get for Christmas as their kids are because their wives are the ones who purchase the gifts.

“...It was just kind of brought to my attention that through the comments that all the male individuals made about not actually shopping (online),” Lovell said. “Not to be discriminating in any way, but it seems as though the females in our community are the ones that are going to generate the revenue.”

There have also been many complaints over the past few weeks about the complicated ballot language. Many have asked if it could be changed, but the commissioners don’t have the power over that — the state does.

Pfeiffer said that it can confuse the public so much that it can cause people to vote opposite to their wishes.

“They confuse that language on purpose....The ballot language is so confusing that if you voted yes on one thing, that it meant no, and if you voted no, it meant yes,” Pfeiffer said. “It didn’t matter how many times you read it, you could read it backwards, and it still sounded as if you were voting the opposite way, and, you know, it either passes because you didn’t understand it, or you thought you voted one way and you actually voted another way.”

Black also addressed an accusation that had been thrown at the commission. He said that as long as he is a commissioner, they will be following the revenue split of 20 percent for general revenue, wages and benefits; 20 percent for the courthouse and jail capital improvements and 60 percent to be split evenly between the two road districts.

Crawford County 911 Emergency Services director talked about speaking at the Chamber of Commerce meetings in the three municipalities, to help educate about the use tax, but Sheriff Darin Layman is hesitant to promote it at the moment.

“I don’t have an issue promoting it, but I don’t want to promote something that’s not official yet,” Layman said.

Commissioners have not officially approved putting the use tax on the ballot.

“So I have a hard time discussing it with the public if it’s not going to be factual,” Layman said.

With the deadline on Jan. 27 getting closer, Boast said he will bring the ballot language to the Jan. 13 commissioners meeting.

In other business, with the April elections coming up, the Crawford County offices are working to be more handicap accessible makeover.

“The door was already purchased, so we used it, and then we used some of our grant money to make that handicap accessible because we have to have it to where we can have our voting machines in there,” said County Clerk Kim Gibbs.

Many county offices are up for the upcoming November elections, including presiding commissioner, circuit clerk, county clerk, recorder of deeds, county treasurer, prosecuting attorney and collector of revenue. The 42nd Circuit Court judge, who is in the district in Division 2, will be up for election. Filing dates open Feb. 24, and on March 31, they close.

For the Cuba Municipal Elections coming up on April 7, a Meet the Candidates night will be held at 7 p.m. on March 10 at the Recklein Auditorium.

Citizens will be able to directly ask candidates questions, and there is no time limit for them to answer.