When you say it's a federal excise tax, you know, most of the time, oh it's the federal excise tax. And that's just understood that it's a tax you pay. Where exactly those funds go is something that's a mystery to all of us.

Last November, we thought that 2004 was going to be the peak year for real estate excise tax, ... We were forecasting that the market would slow down in '05 and then more in '06. What we've seen so far is that 2005 has been, every single month, substantially stronger than in 2004.

This thing would pay for itself to the city over time. This will generate new sales tax. I don't think anything would have happened on that site. It would have sat there and decayed without the help the city has provided through this redevelopment district. If the project would have worked without the city investing $3 million, then that site would have been developed a long time ago.

This is the first time there's been a comprehensive plan and sales tax measure for the voters in the North Bay put on that's identical for both counties.

In some ways, the sales tax is fairer. A retired person living on a fixed salary, their property tax appreciates while they don't spend much on sales tax.

We're required to continue collecting that tax from our customers until the IRS tells us to stop doing that.