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This post misses the entire issue that is being decided in this election.

There are two issues we are voting on, in one vote. Approval or rejection of the formation of the RFA and the associated 31-page "Plan" which includes the FBC formula. And the voter's pamphlet not only did into include the plan, it did not even have a link to the Plan. Finding the Plan is not a trivial task: It's only available as an attachment to the agenda packet for the meeting when the City Council voted to put this measure on the ballot. Not at all easy to find.

I found it. I read it. I think it is a TERRIBLE plan that will severely impair the quality of our emergency service over the next seven years. Our population is going up at 2% a year, 14% over seven years. The RFA Strategic Plan does not add a single fire fighter or a single paramedic over the entire seven year plan. This is shown on the RFA STRAT tab of a spreadsheet entitled TORFA_STRAT_PLAN_22.10.14_LK That's not exactly transparent. The staffing plan is hard to find. But there are no added staff for seven years, despite a large expected growth in population.

The FBC formula that Pete Kmet defends is fundamentally flawed. A building that contains 100 apartments, each 1,600 square feet, would pay a tiny fraction of what the exact same building would pay if it contained 100 condominiums, each 1,600 square feet. Huh? If title to the building is held by one owner, a 1,600,000 square foot apartment building would pay a fee based on the square root of 1,600,000, which is 400 . If they are separately owned condos, each condo would pay the square root of 1,600, which is 40 for each condo, times 100 condos, or 4,000 for the building. In the first case, the "fire flow charge" is multiplied by 400; in the other, it's 4,000. Ten times as much, simply because the ownership form is "condo" versus "apartment." That discourages home ownership, and encourages corporate ownership of housing. Is that in the public interest? I think not.

This is a huge subsidy to large corporate apartment owners, at the expense of individual homeowners and (mostly local) owners of small 5 - 10 unit apartment buildings. The "square root of the square foot" is a fundamentally flawed formula, and should be rejected by the voters. And THAT is what we are actually voting on. But the Olympia City Attorney, who wrote the "explanatory statement" for the ballot, did not even mention that it's a big increase in our property tax bills. THAT is what we are actually voting on.

The RFA would add $10.5 million in additional costs to our property tax bills, without adding a single firefighter, fire engine, or fire station in the seven-year Strategic Plan.

Big new fees. No new service. Vote NO. Keep your fire service local.