Saturday, July 28, 2012

Political Desk: Picking up the Spare

The Washington State Primary doesn't have any state initiatives or referendums on it, but it does have KING COUNTY PROPOSTION NO 1 Children and Family Services Center Capital Levy. This is a measure to allow the coung to levy an addition regular property tax of 7 centers per $1000 of assessed valuation for nine years to replcace the Children and and Family Justice Center.

Now, this is where I growl and grumble, and then reach for my wallet anyway. Thanks to a cowardly and possibly unconstitutional initiative we have on the books, you can't raise taxes save with a supermajority in the legislature or one of these voting operations. So the people have to deal with this type of hostage situation every time - either we increase funding, or we face things falling down around our ears (Seattle is looking at a similar measure on its Libraries, which we DON'T get to vote on down here).

So, grumble, grumble, let me get the checkbook. Vote YES. Not a fan of this type of funding, but still see the need. If only we had a trustworthy elected body of some type to handle this sort of thing...

Next: We recapitulate. No, that would take too long. We sum up.