The Las Cruces Sun-News reports that a spaceport tax referendum in Otero County, New Mexico, appears headed to defeat. According to data from the county clerk’s office, the tax (one-eighth of one percent on gross receipts) was behind 8,954 to 8,179 votes, or 52.26 to 47.74 percent, with all but absentee ballots counted. Unless there’s a large number of such ballots with a disproportionate number of “for” votes (and early voting, which New Mexico does have, has already been included in the results above), then the spaceport tax will fail. The defeat will not be a fatal blow for the spaceport, since only a few percent of the facility’s funding would have come from the tax, but it will be a setback for supporters. Similar taxes (actually twice as large: one-quarter of a percent) narrowly passed last year in Doña Ana County, which includes Las Cruces, last year, and Sierra County, which includes Truth or Consequences, this spring.
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