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So the tax, if it is listed on your sales receipt, will not be called a tax. It will be labeled "parking assessment" or "parking fee."

The special tax will help the city finance a new 1,000-car, $20 million parking garage at the 27th Street and Pine Lake Road shopping center for customers expected to be drawn to a new 220,000-square-foot Scheels. The store will be one of the chain’s largest flagship stores, complete with a Ferris wheel.

State law allows cities to impose the special tax -- called an occupation tax -- in a limited geographic area. It will be assessed on all items sold in the shopping center, except restaurant food and drinks.

Retail stores in SouthPointe can pay the tax in several ways. They can raise the price of goods. They can absorb the extra 1 percent. Or they can collect it directly from customers by adding it to the sales receipt.

That's where the new name for the occupation tax arose. An amendment originally would have required the retailer to use the language "parking assessment" on a sales receipt.

But Councilwoman Jane Raybould, a local business owner, suggested "parking assessment" might be too long for some receipts and it "might get abbreviated inappropriately."

"I have not thought that through," said Lincoln attorney Kent Seacrest, who brought the optional tax language to the council. "We do not want to cause an embarrassment."

So the council agreed to allow retailers to use either "parking fee" or "parking assessment" on sales slips. 

But Council Chairman Trent Fellers didn't care what the 1 percent tax was called. Fellers said he was philosophically opposed to an occupation tax. 

"I just can't favor the occupation tax structure in doing this development. I don't think we should be inserting ourselves into a private development. This is a landlord-tenant issue," Fellers said

And Fellers was the lone "no" vote on every measure relating to creating and collecting the occupation tax. 

The other six council members praised the SouthPointe expansion, which is expected to bring shoppers from outside Lancaster County, and touted its positive economic impact on the community.

Councilwomen Cyndi Lamm and Leirion Gaylor Baird said some retailers at SouthPointe said they expect to get enough new business that it will offset the cost of the 1 percent occupation tax.

"This is gong to be a destination for a lot of people outside of Lincoln. It's going to be a great draw," said Lamm.

The council approved five documents relating to the SouthPointe expansion at Monday's meeting, including defining the geographic area where the occupation tax will be imposed, authorizing the 1 percent tax to be used for construction and maintenance of a public parking garage, approving an agreement with the developer to construct the Scheels store and the parking garage, authorizing issuance of the tax allocation bonds for the $20 million parking garage; and providing special permits for the changes at the shopping center.