— Alex Huppenthal —
I have to vote NO on the Tax Levy. Here’s why. The Tax levy isn’t complete. It offers a bandaid approach to encourage voters to pass the Levy and leaves the door open for yet another round of funding, when the short fall is finally revealed. That’s poor planning, in my opinion. Secondly, the OIFR Tax Levy deserves a NO, because it is unfair to long time residents of Orcas Island. Those who lived here the longest are often living on fixed incomes. Yet, their land tax constantly goes up and up. Eventually, they are forced off their land, or forced into selling bits of it, to pay for their land, which they paid for once. The OIFR Tax levy does not draw on any Tourist revenue. This year the Lodging Tax collected was quite high and last year hovered around record income from Tourism. Tourists need OIFR services, and don’t participate in the costs.
Finally, the overhead in the OIFR budget is the highest on each Tax payer than any of our Islands. The Lopez community doesn’t have a six figure salaried Chief. San Juan Island taps insurance companies to offset the cost of providing services. Here on Orcas, no one seems to represent the grassroots, long time resident, or struggling family that owns property. Sure, the Levy is fine with second homeowners and the well to do. I believe we should never forget the long standing residents of Orcas and their contributions to the community, by treating them as if they are well off investors, second homeowners, or beneficiaries of the Tourist boom.
For those reasons in total I urge Orcas Islanders to vote NO, on the Tax levy as is, and send it back to the committee to make it fair to residents and honestly state what is needed in funding.
Very well said. I was struck by Ed Sutton’s comments in the Sounder on Wednesday. While he expressed severe misgivings he still will vote yes. He believes we should have a commission to really look at the funding. Now Ed didn’t recommend a no vote with the District coming back in the fall for a one year levy so we would be able to pick through this with a fine tooth comb. No Ed will rubber stamp this waste of money
By the way, Ed’s faulty logic is on display at Eastsound Sewer and Water District where he is a Board member. Everyone at ESWD pays $48.00 a month whether you live in a studio apartment or a 5 bedroom home. “Great Leadership” if you want faulty logic.
One more thing, Those off you who can afford to live in homes that can see the water, we do, should be leading the charge for better accountability. My wife and I can afford the levy, but it is just wrong.
Enough with the bickering and finger pointing. Why don’t we use the same energy and see if the levy can be reviewed as Alex pointed out. We all need the services of our fire department and EMTs whether we’re low, medium, or megabucks. I don’t particularly care for a chief that gets a 6-digit income with a primary volunteer crew either and maybe that’s a task we need to deal with. But we are a community and we need to do this together and quit placing blame. If you have suggestions, put them out there and let each of us decide for ourselves without playing the blame game. Alex came up with some very good thoughts and I’m still considering which way to go. The more information we can get the better our decision can be made.