The proposed Regional Fire Authority and its Fire Benefit Charge should be rejected by the voters, and the City Councils should be told to start over with a more normal approach to funding fire and emergency medical services.
The hundreds -- or thousands -- of errors in the "official calculator" would simply get billed to people if this passes. And they would get to appeal to ... not the Assessor, not the Board of Equalization, but to the RFA itself. The fox guarding the henhouse.
None of this would be known to the public if Larry Dzieza and the JOLT News had not educated the public to see the flaws, and enable them to cast an educated vote to reject the RFA. Thank goodness for the JOLT News.
All of this could have been avoided if the Cities had heeded the advice of the public at their hearings: Abandon the goofy "square root of the square feet" method for collecting revenue, and apply a normal property tax to the assessed value of every building. That way people can predict their charges, have a well-established appeals process, and more expensive buildings will pay more for fire protection -- because they have more to protect.
But the arrogance of certain City Council members, preferring to trust a shady consultant over their own public, brought us to this point.
Meanwhile, the City Councils allowed their cities to blatantly violate the law in sending out a brochure that explicitly violated the ban on use of photos of buildings on fires and people on stretchers. Over $20,000 of public funds illegally spent to print and mail a blatantly illegal flyer to promote the flawed RFA. And the City Attorney wrote an "explanatory statement" we all received on our ballots that conveniently forgot to mention that this would be the largest property tax increase in the history of either Olympia or Tumwater. Not a peep that "your property tax bill will go up $200 - $500 per year (or perhaps $1,310/year if you happen to live in the Capitol Lake Towers condominiums.)
In the short run the solution is simple: VOTE NO before Tuesday, April 25. Keep your fire service local. Don't give over control to shady consultants who cannot even calculate the cost of their proposal to apartment, condominum or business owners correctly.
In the long run, we need better leadership in both of the Cities: at the City Council level, at the City Manager level, and at the City Attorney level.
Please explain the inappropriate content below.
