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If the so-called "big box" stores in Dickson, Hohenwald and Columbia attract 2,000 Hickman County shoppers every week -- as data research indicates -- that's $10.4 million in sales that take place outside this community each year. "That's $286,000 in revenue, in potential revenue,  that could be in Hickman County," said Robert Mitchell, speaking of the sales tax that's lost in just that way.

So what can be done about it? Mitchell, the Vision 21 chairman, provided a pretty clear-cut approach during a presentation to the Hickman County Chamber of Commerce last Tuesday:  Spend $20 more a week at stores in this county, not elsewhere. If all 9,000 households did that for a year, then the resulting $257,000 in sales tax would help alleviate the government's funding problems. Try $30 a week and the annual revenue would be $386,000. "That $386,000 might be just enough to keep our commissioners from raising the property tax," Mitchell said.