Friday, February 8, 2013
LETTERS CONTINUED FROM A4
going to magically disappear? No, of course not; once we are a city the current taxes already being paid will just stay in Silverdale. The county spends $320 million dollars annually. Voting YES to incorporate will keep $11M in Silverdale. If Kitsap County was spending that $11M in Silverdale now, there would be no change because when the city replaces county governance the city will be responsible for those expenses and the county will save those costs. The only difference is WHERE and WHO spends your taxes. For years the county has been taking funds from Silverdale and spending them elsewhere and that is the reason they fear “losing (Silverdale’s) tax revenue.” The “No” yard signs say higher taxes. So which is it, are taxes magically disappearing or going higher? Neither. Sales taxes (85%) will stay in Silverdale and property taxes will go down as the county road tax is eliminated. The City of Silverdale will have more money per person than any other local city. Citizens of Silverdale may choose to build a new library or improve the parks, but people here will decide that for themselves, not the county. Voting yes to incorporate the City of Silverdale remedies the “lost tax revenue” and keeps your taxes within your community. Replacing county control with directly elected representation will fix “taxation without representation.” Vote YES to form the City of Silverdale.
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Another voice about incorporation The time is fast approaching for the voters within the proposed “Incorporated Silverdale City” boundaries to vote for “Incorporation”. What are some real consequences of this act of incorporation? Over the years “Un-incorporated Silverdale” has been allowed to evolve into a regional economic powerhouse. During this build out the taxpayers of Kitsap County have subsidized the installation of state of the art infrastructure, such as streets, sidewalks, water, electricity, gas, sewage treatment, fire and police protection, for the residences and businesses of “Un-incorporated Silverdale.” The entire population of Kitsap County has become dependent on the millions of tax dollars that flow into the common coffers of Kitsap County. A large part of the cost of paying a family wage to an un-incorporated Kitsap County fire fighter, the fine Kitsap County Sheriff’s office protection, the skilled persons who maintain the Kitsap County infrastructure, schools, and institutions, comes directly from Silverdale generated tax dollars. Remove these tax dollars, to install a new political power base, and even that chuck hole, in the road to Holly, will not be filled in a timely manner. For the sake of all the residents of Kitsap County, and especially in these troubled economic times, the proponents of “Silverdale Incorporation” should have an epiphany and recognize that an “Un-incorporated Silverdale” has become too big to fail.
Marcus Hoffman Silverdale
Page A5
Taxation without revelation A
n incremental sales go and how they would be tax increase to accounted for. You would fund additional or expect a fully developed expanded mental health ser- process for transparency to vices in Kitsap County sure already be constructed. As a sounds like a good idea on citizen you would expect to the surface, but good luck either vote on this yourself or for there to digging below be a reasonthat surface Everything able amount for any of the of time for details to the Bremerton your elected current prorepresentation posal makto review all ing its way of the details around. The presented group behind and distribute the current these details proposal is back to their looking for constituency support and for feedback approval from Colleen Smidt before any the County Commissioners or any other vote of support was cast on governing elected body in their part. If you are a citizen of Kitsap County it can get a presentation in front of for Bremerton, not one of these expectations was met or a vote. For a proposal of this mag- even barely considered. On January 16, a vote of nitude which will generate approximately $2.8 million the Bremerton City Council to $3.4 million annually you on Resolution 3168 to supwould expect a significant port Kitsap County’s enactamount of support data to be ment of one-tenth of 1 perincluded in any public pre- cent Sales and Use Tax in sentations. As a citizen you Kitsap County was cast. would expect a full, detailed This resolution passed. presentation on exactly Would you like to know where your tax dollars would the total number of support
documents submitted by the Kitsap County Strategic Leadership for a Community Behavioral Health Plan that were used for the council to decide their vote of support on? There were only six actual pages of documents submitted for a tax increase that will generate millions of dollars a year. One city council member that voted to approve this sits on the board for Kitsap Mental Health which is one of the targeted recipients. Another city council member, who also voted to approve this, is an employee of the Bremerton School District -another targeted recipient. One item of the proposal that was not included in the City Council packet was the complete list of names of who is actually in the group behind the proposal. I was able to secure that document at a later date from the county website. After reading the names on this list, I was outraged that such a knowledgeable group of career professionals, who operate and oversee local agencies that exist to serve this community, would be so callus towards the very residents
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and taxpayers who will be paying for the increase if it passes. The people on this list know better. They are required to operate at a much higher level than this within their own organizations. So why are they cutting corners on transparency and accountability now? I am sure the overall intention of helping those in need is a good one and a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax increase could accomplish a big step forward with those intentions. However the language of the proposal with words like “supplant existing funding” raise a lot of concern, so does the complete lack of a full and detailed presentation being made available to the taxpayers for a full review well before any vote is cast to implement it. I encourage the Kitsap County Commissioners to hold off on approving this tax increase until the entire plan has been made available to the public and taxpayers, and they are given ample time to have questions answered, give comments and feedback.
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