Letter to Editor | Vote no on Proposition No. 1

A Permanent, Regressive Property Tax

||| FROM SEAN DEMERITT |||

I am a lifelong Democrat. I have voted yes on levies when they are clear, honest, and benefit the whole community, like our fire department levy, which had a sunset clause and a specific purpose everyone could see. I am voting No on Proposition No. 1, and I am asking my fellow Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to do the same.

The campaign will tell you that a No vote cuts parks and essential services. That is not true. Read Resolution 02-2026 for yourself. The County’s own document lays out the pressures plainly: federal COVID grants ran out, state funding was reduced, and inflation drove up insurance and staffing costs. Fine. The County is right about all of that. What the resolution never explains is why those pressures require a permanent tax increase rather than a return to how the County operated before the pandemic.

Every senior on a fixed income, every disabled veteran, and every working family on this island already understands inflation. When our bills went up, we figured it out. We cut where we could, stopped spending money we did not have, and made do. The County faces the same reality. The difference is that when the rest of us ran short, we adjusted our own budgets. The County’s solution is to adjust yours.

During the pandemic, temporary federal grants allowed the County to shift employees to a 32-hour, four-day work week while continuing to pay full salaries. That was emergency money for an emergency, not a permanent policy anyone voted on. Resolution 02-2026 acknowledges those funds are gone. When they ran out in December 2025, the Council had one straightforward choice: go back to a standard 40-hour work week. Instead, they made the four-day schedule permanent and asked voters to cover it forever. San Juan County is now the only county in Washington State with a permanent four-day work week at full pay for its employees.

You will work extra hours this year to pay for county employees to work one day less each week.

We work more so they work less. The County’s own resolution says the 32-hour schedule saved approximately $2 million over two years. Restoring a standard 40-hour work week would recover a significant share of that cost without raising a single tax. The County never seriously considered it. Instead they are asking for $4.5 million a year, permanently, more than double what the schedule supposedly saved. Under RCW 84.55, this levy resets the tax base with no end date. It compounds every year, forever. You will not read that in the campaign literature.

State law gave the County Council a specific tool to protect low-income seniors, disabled residents, and disabled veterans from this exact kind of tax burden. The Council chose not to use it. So the people on this island who are already managing inflation on fixed incomes, who have no way to increase their Social Security checks, and who have no four-day work weeks of their own, are being asked to permanently fund someone else’s. Renters will see it in higher rents. Homeowners will see it compound forever. And if we say yes now, what is the argument against a three-day work week in 2031?

Voting No does not close parks or cut senior services. It tells the County Council to do what the rest of us have already done: go back to pre-pandemic realities, match workloads to pay, and make the hard choices before asking the public to carry the cost. I believe in community investment. But a government that locks in benefits for its own employees before protecting its most vulnerable residents is not acting in our interest.

Demand accountability before permanence. Vote No on Proposition No. 1.