Issues: Where I Stand
Our voters are tired of dirty campaigns that focus on attacking opponents. I agree. Early in the campaign season Ms. Quiring and I discussed how we would run our campaigns and agreed we would run clean campaigns.That is what I am doing. She is not.
It is odd, or just too bad, when a campaign that started with "this will be a clean campaign" rewrites past history or just plain lies as voters receive their ballots. I am not sure why a person must take past actions and turn them into degrading statements. I remember when it was good to make sure we have and keep enough deputies while holding the property tax to one percent increase. I remember when providing clean, green, safe regional parks with a small parking fee was good.
Now my fellow councilor, who says she works well with everyone, has sent a mailer just like the ones David Madore used to send out. This is my tenth campaign and I have never sent a negative piece and I will not start now. Thank you and God bless.
Increasing property taxes – the rest of the story
The 1% maximum annual property tax increase was created by the voters when they passed Referendum 47. It was later passed by the state and I supported that as one of your local State Legislators. Tim Eyman acknowledged that government needed some increases in property tax to address the inflation that we all see. He thought it should be limited to 1% per year, plus what comes from new construction to cover those new expenses. The voters agreed and that’s what I have supported.
How we collect our property tax is confusing. The total property tax collected by Clark County and used to pay the county’s bills doesn’t increase just because the population increases or just because property values increase. This is true no matter what happens to each of our property values. In many states, but not Washington, the county gets more money from property taxes when our property values increase.
Our County Assessor explains this at www.clark.wa.gov/assessor ...
"The 1% increase limit applies to the amount of property tax collected by tax districts. The 1% increase limit does not apply to individual property tax payers.
If a tax district was able to collect $100 in property taxes last year, the amount they may collect this year will increase to $101 plus an allowance for new construction.”
The Clark County Council can choose to slightly increase how much total property tax is collected by passing a resolution that includes the 1% during budget hearings in December. If the full 1% is passed, it’s not enough to even cover the inflation that we saw that year. The 1% increase amounts to about $5 per household per year. That increase lets us keep up with the costs that continue to increase (inflation) for all our county law enforcement and other services.
My opponent disagreed with that and voted no on the property tax increase. OK. But, if you want to vote no on the property tax increase, you should not vote for a budget that requires that increase. Yes, that’s what my opponent did. What she did is like buying a new car but refusing to work more hours or do anything to come up with the additional money needed to pay that bill.
My opponents claim that I slashed our sheriff’s budget is an outright lie. We had to cut the county’s budget during the last recession. We laid off over 100 people to live with the money we had. A few, I repeat - a few, were from the sheriff’s office but almost all were from other departments. Since then I have worked hard to restore the sheriff’s budget, while keeping the other departments the same.
I did vote to add a $3 parking fee to our four regional parks. All the other parks remain free. Why? To keep out people who just want to party and degrade our park. It was easy for trouble makers to cost the county a lot of money because we have very limited staff. Putting the parking pass back in place stopped those problems. It helped us keep our parks green and safe. Also, people from Oregon love our parks and should help pay for them. I go to Lewisville Park and I have never had a person come up and complain about the fee. They have complained to me when the bathrooms were dirty and unsafe.
My opponent still wants David Madore’s Alternative 4 for our growth plan, yet she voted for a future population number that would not support it. She would not believe all the attorneys that said it would fail in the courts. Because of her inability to understand Washington State law, no one received anything and it is why we had to start over. That is costing our county a lot of money. When my opponent says she was a State Representative and Senator she often fails to tell you that was in OREGON. Those are completely different laws. I do understand Washington state laws and helped craft the 2007 growth plan that had a good population estimate and successfully made its way through the courts.
“Where I stand” is a new section devoted to Marc’s positions on issues impacting our community. Click the list items below to learn more.