My choice is clear
As you drive around the Island, you see countless “Yes” and “No” signs about Proposition 1, the proposed six-year levy lid lift. I am pleased that the city council has given Island voters the chance in November to make their voice heard and to help chart the city’s future. I am not speaking as a city council member, but as an Island resident, and I know how I will cast my vote.
My family has lived on the Island for nearly 35 years. My wife and I are happy that our son and his wife (both proud Mercer Island High School graduates) have returned to the Island and are raising our first grandchild here. Just like you, we all know that the Island is a special place to live and to raise children. We have great schools, beautiful parks and safe neighborhoods. I want to preserve this lifestyle. Passing Proposition 1 will allow the city to maintain its current level of service and the Island’s current quality of life, and increase its rainy-day fund to buttress against unforeseen events. The ordinance passed by the city council that put Proposition 1 on the ballot also requires the preparation of a financial sustainability plan so the city can continue to provide much-needed services in a cost-efficient manner.
State law limits the annual growth of the Island’s share of real property taxes to generally 1 percent over the amount raised in the prior year. Without the passage of Proposition 1, the city council will be forced to balance the 2019-20 budget through cuts to services in areas of public safety, youth counseling, park maintenance and senior services and/or engage in fiscally imprudent use of one-time reserve funds. Unfortunately, during 2021 through 2024 the projected deficits to the city’s general fund and youth and family services fund will continue to grow resulting in even deeper cuts to services.
I don’t want to see such cuts in the city’s level of service to our community. I want to protect our Island and keep it the special place that it is. Let’s keep in mind that the money raised from Proposition 1 (about $1.02 per day for an owner of a home with an assessed value of $1.2 million) stays on the Island and invests in the Island’s future.
Please join me in voting “Yes” for Proposition 1. The choice is clear.
(The views expressed in this letter are my own and not on behalf of the Mercer Island City Council.)
Benson Wong
Mercer Island
Proposition 1 is a bargain
I’ve lived on Mercer Island for more than seven years. Compared with seven other cities where I have lived, Mercer Island provides the highest quality service for the lowest taxpayer cost.
Because of legal limits on annual property tax growth and the small percentage of property taxes you pay that are allocated to the city, city revenue cannot keep apace with inflation. For a modest personal tax increase of less than 4 percent over the next six years, we can maintain both core services (police and fire) as well as extra, extraordinary services that set us apart from other cities – a social services department, counselors in schools and city-sponsored community gatherings that not only provide entertainment but also keep our community vibrant and connected with each other.
Proposition 1 will cost the average homeowner an extra $1 a day. Not passing Proposition 1 will necessarily erode services I and many others cherish. This small tax increase is well worth it to me – from where I sit, it is a bargain.
Jody Kris
Mercer Island
A 45-percent city property tax increase?
There are signs around Mercer Island stating that the city council is proposing a 45-percent tax increase and people are questioning how the city council could ask for so much. The bottom line is this:
• A homeowner with an assessed value (AV) of $1.2 million (the Mercer Island 2018 median AV) will pay $1,208.77 in city property tax in 2018.
• If Proposition 1 passes this November, in 2024 at the end of the levy’s 6-year term, the tax on that same house will be $1,747.43, which amounts to a 44.53-percent increase.
• Based on the language in Proposition 1, the tax increase of 44.56 percent is permanent after 2024.
• This increase will be the same for all homes on the island assuming no remodels.
So that explains the 45 percent. Other facts about the levy lift:
1. It is misleading for the city council to state that city property taxes are limited to a 1-percent increase. They leave out the rest of the story; the increase is 1-percent plus property taxes on new construction. From 2011 to 2017 city property tax revenues increased over 2.5 percent per year. In 2017, it was a 3.4-percent increase over 2016. The city’s 2018 budget calls for a 2.4-percent increase over 2017. Get the whole story.
2. Today, the current 1-percent increase per year part of the property tax is at the discretion of the city council. This means they can make it less than 1 percent — even take a zero increase if they want. What is different about Proposition 1 is that after the first more than 24-percent increase in 2019, the city property tax increase of 3 percent per year over the next 5 years is fixed and mandatory.
3. The city council voted to front-load the tax collection with Proposition 1. This means the city will receive more money than they need in the first year. It will be incumbent on the city council to save this money for future years and not spend it.
4. Proposition 1 is general fund money, just for operations and maintenance. This is not capital improvement money used to build or upgrade city infrastructure. In fact, the city says it has $30 million in capital improvements backlog, so it is expected they will be asking citizens to fund yet another capital levy or bond issue in the next few years.
5. There is nothing binding in Proposition 1 that commits the city to further accountability and cost reduction programs.
What’s more frustrating than the 45-percent increase, is one that appears disingenuous to me. The proposition as written claims this tax increase is for safety, for example: police, fire and the kids (through support for school counselors). In any rational budget process, high-priority issues like safety and our children’s mental and social well-being should be funded first. Why would the council ever choose to cut those services over less critical services? Encourage the city to control expenses through efficiency measures and by re-prioritizing over $45 million in fund balances by voting No on Proposition 1.
Robert Harper
Mercer Island
Are we all rich?
Concerning proposition 1, I was put off by Deputy Mayor Salim’s comment about how little the levy lift was. Many people that I know came to the island for the schools. They put together some tight budgets to afford their house and send their children to Mercer Island schools. We just experienced an 18% increase in our taxes. Even though our houses have increased in appraised value and people might think we are “rich”, it does not mean that we have more money for taxes (cash flow). That money has to come from somewhere, college savings, retirement savings, vacation savings an emergency fund, etc. There are seniors who have lived in their house for 30 or 40 years. Their friends and their community are here on the island. That house they paid $150,000 might be worth well over $1 million and now they have to pay $10,000 or more a year in property taxes out of their fixed income from IRA, social security or pensions. An extra $2500 to $4500 over the six-year period makes a difference. The City Council needs to demonstrate they are running the island as efficiently as they can before they ask some of our most vulnerable citizens for more money. Vote no on Prop 1.
Robert Reid
Mercer Island
Parking tickets push out poor
I am appalled at the injustices Bellevue is creating for people that visit their downtown area. You too should be concerned that many people are getting ticketed incorrectly or without enough evidence in Bellevue. I am at a crossroads for a parking ticket that I have documented evidence with clear pictures showing I was parked legally. But it is not the ticket that is the problem for me, it is the trend of assuming citizens are guilty first that is the problem for me.
I have worked and visited Seattle and Bellevue for 15 years. There have been a lot more parking area changes over these years. Although the parking areas remain inconsistent from street to street (think Bellevue 8th St to 12th St along 106th to 112th), I am very conscientious of parking areas. Even with this, I was incorrectly ticketed in May. I took pictures of the area and my car. The prosecutor for the district court said he thought I had moved my car and taken the pictures. (I have audio proof of this by the way from the hearing.) The pictures from the ticketing officer were too fuzzy to see what was going on so the judge decided to view my pictures. Because it was unclear from the officer pictures, he could not deny that what the officer saw was incorrect. I was asked to appeal if I disagreed. I went through all the paperwork and when it came to appeal, it was $230 just to appeal. (The original ticket was $25.) So now, I am stuck. Do I pay for something I was wrongly ticketed for and put my tail between my legs hunched over in defeat? Or do I pay the $230 for fees no one in the superior court or district court could explain to me? I was told I could waiver the fee, with more paperwork, but I would have to hit a certain mark on the poverty line.
Is this how Bellevue is pushing out the poor and inviting the wealthy? By erroneously ticketing knowing most will just pay the ticket? 40 tickets at $25 a pop goes a longer way than a mere $230 that I am forced to pay if I want to prove my pictures are legit. Does the practice in Bellevue District Court mean that we are presumed guilty before innocent? This is a mere parking ticket. What other practices are being done in the courts? I implore you to reach deeper folks for some facts; or you will eventually be reaching deeper into your pocketbooks for unjust tickets..or more.
Rachel Lowe
Mercer Island
Hold leaders accountable
The democracy that we were all taught is our right and privilege is no longer that, not when those with the most money also have the most influence and often determine what happens in our government. We must hold all political candidates’ feet to the fire of honesty and disclosure about where their monetary support comes from and what they intend to do, if elected, to definitively return the power of this republic to the people. It is for us that government exists, not the other way around. We must demand that our elected leaders become completely transparent in every respect, that they pledge themselves to protect our all too fragile democracy, that they remember whom they serve (us), that they support the freedom of the press, the freedom of our own speech, the freedom to not be ruled and manipulated by those whose sole goal seems to be to get as much wealth and power for themselves as they are allowed by those who ostensibly govern in our name. No more! No more! Hold our elected leaders accountable, as never before. Too much is at stake.
All candidates must tell voters where they stand at https://democracy2018.org/survey.
Adam Hall
Issaquah
