shirleyNANNEY
Editor
A celebration of the wheel tax being lowered by $10 due to the payoff of the Carroll County 1,000 Acre Recreational Lake was held Thursday at the Carroll County Chamber Office in Huntingdon.
The wheel tax was lowered from $55 to $45 at the conclusion of Dec. 31 of last year.
“This is the day to celebrate the wheel tax coming off,” said Brad Hurley, president of the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce.
He told the story of the lake following a luncheon that was attended by several persons who have been involved in some way with the lake. Those attending other than Hurley were former Watershed Board members Brad Chappell, former County Mayor Kenny McBride, County Mayor Joseph Butler, chairman of Authority Natalie McCullar Porter, Recording Secretary Kim Carter, and County Clerk Darlene Kirk, and Huntingdon Mayor Nina Smothers,
The lake was the vision of Huntingdon Mayor Dale Kelley.
Many said it would never be built, but it did happen despite those who said it would never happen. There were 46 landowners involved, Hurley said.
He noted there were many who said it would leak, but it never did. Many thought it would never be filled up.
By May 2010 it was a third full when the flood came which concluded its filling.
The lake officially opened on March 20, 2013.
The wheel tax passed with 53 percent favoring it and 47 percent voting no.
Robert Keeton III served as chairman and Joel Washburn was the treasurer.
In 2022 the legislature voted to pay it off and turn it over to TWRA. “Promises are only as strong as the people that make them,” said the county mayor. “It’s a tax that honored its goal.”
