Sam Fletcher reports from the Oak Harbor City Council meeting of Tue, Nov. 19, 2024 for the Whidbey News-Times.
The approval of next year’s legislative priorities took three rounds of voting from the Oak Harbor council.
The city’s requests to the legislature cover a wide range of topics, including child care, emergency services, flexible real-estate excise tax, indigent defense, community infrastructure, marina, growth, Highway 20 and the ferry system, ratepayer impacts and Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
During two recent meetings, the city council focused on whether to ask state lawmakers to revise the state property tax cap — and ultimately removed the issue from the list of priorities.
They Said It
Councilmember Bryan Stucky preferred the list [of legislative priorities] where the tax cap remained at 1%.
“I understand that on paper it sounds great,” Stucky said. “If we could do say 3% in the times where it’s hard or we have a shortfall or something, we could do it that time and not another time. I get that, and it sounds good.”
Stucky feared this opened the door to an automatic 3% tax hike.
Councilmember Jim Woessner said that the Association of Washington Cities pushes for the higher property tax cap every year.
“I think the state knows darn well how AWC feels about it and how cities feel about it, and myself, if this is our priorities I’d like to keep it our true priorities, the priorities that are best going to impact our city,” he said.
Mayor Pro Tem Tara Hizon argued that showing local support would help the association push for the higher tax on the state level.
“There is strength in numbers, and that if the legislature gets a completely united front in the message that cities are sending them, I think that that has value,” she said.
“I am pleased that the council decided to remove advocating for an increase to the property tax cap,” Stucky wrote in an email. “While I respect the viewpoint of others who believe that allowing cities to raise the tax cap during difficult times or when additional funding seems necessary could be beneficial, I have concerns. Since the city has historically always voted to uphold the 1% tax cap each year, I worry that any increase to that amount could become more or less automatic, regardless of the actual need.”
