Friends. Usually I don’t bother you more than once a week. But this is time-sensitive.
Please click this link and sign in ‘Con’ for SB5798 if you do NOT want your property taxes raised automatically beyond 1%. Do it by Monday. https://app.leg.wa.gov/csi/Senate?selectedCommittee=456&selectedMeeting=33213
Background
You probably have not heard this. There is a big push in Olympia this year to give city councils the ability to raise property taxes not by 1%, but up to the limit of inflation – and without giving you a vote. There has been a LOT of promotion to make it happen, including a letter by Des Moines Mayor Traci Buxton in the Seattle Times. https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/mayors-to-wa-lawmakers-lift-the-local-property-tax-cap/
Speaking only for myself, I do not support this. I believe it is a terrible look to promote this — only a few months after voters decisively said ‘No’ to new property taxes in not one, but -two- elections!
I am not against property tax increases so long as voters get to choose. And I believe voters will feel betrayed if they find out in a few months that the City Council can take that choice away — increase their property taxes — in spite of not one but TWO elections in Des Moines last year!
Take Action: Sign in Con
If you do not want your city council to be able to automatically raise your property taxes beyond 1% without your vote, I hope you will click the link and Sign In ‘Con’ on SB5798. https://app.leg.wa.gov/csi/Senate?selectedCommittee=456&selectedMeeting=33213
If you haven’t done this before, here are some instructions.
1. Select the bill 5798 (Property Tax)
2. Select ‘I would like my position noted for the legislative record’
3. Fill out the form. (Be sure to choose ‘Con’!)
Let me know if you have questions!
Trust
One last thing. These groups take pains to say that this is not ‘automatic’; that the bill only gives cities a choice. That is completely disingenuous. The key element of SB5798 is to allow property taxes to rise automatically based on inflation. If inflation rises, the ability to tax you, without a vote, also rises.
Currently, cities also have a ‘choice’ to take the 1% allowed by State law. How many cities say ‘no thank you!’? Basically, none. If this bill passes, it is a certainty that most cities will take advantage of the extra taxes. It’s easier to blame inflation than ask voters for help. If not, why would they be pushing so hard? That lack of sincerity is almost as bad as a new tax you don’t get to decide on.
To me, the strategy is clear: people in wealthier, more tax-friendly parts of King County are far more numerous so lobby them for votes they cannot get in their own cities. State lawmakers, with their huge deficits, cynically can see this as a way to ‘help’ small cities get more money – without actually giving it to them. If we do not push back, this may pass.
The other side
To be fair, here are links to some of the groups in support of this new taxing authority, including that letter from Mayor Traci Buxton in the Seattle Times.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSet1p06LHMeWq9O7p3yq6ZWWEh_BubExNMHjODDKI8syYnbyA/viewform
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/mayors-to-wa-lawmakers-lift-the-local-property-tax-cap/