Lynnwood’s answer for repairing city streets might actually be simple.
Anyone who has driven in Lynnwood understands that the city streets are in very bad condition. Compounding the problem: There is no dedicated funding source to finance the needed repairs.
The list of neglected roads is long and the cookie jar is empty. For instance, rebuilding battered 36th Avenue W. would take about $13 million. The Lynnwood Transportation Benefit District (TBD) thinks the answer to this funding problem is burdening the citizens with more sales tax. That is a bad idea. I’ll try to explain.
Voters passed a ballot measure proposed by Community Transit that raised sales tax by three-tenths of 1 percent last November. Sound Transit will be asking voters for a three-tenths of 1 percent increase this November. Snohomish County is asking voters for a two-tenths of 1 percent increase on the August ballot for law, justice and health.
Now the Lynnwood TBD (also city council members) is putting one-tenth of 1 percent increase on the November ballot to fix Lynnwood roads. Too much already! If all these measures pass, the sales tax rate in Lynnwood will be 10.4 percent.
This will hurt business and punish everyone, especially the poor.
Instead of raising the sales tax rate to build and repair roads, the answer in Lynnwood might be for the city council to approve a Regional Fire Authority.
Consider the following:
Over the last couple of decades, regional fire consolidation (RFA) has been discussed several times in south Snohomish County. These talks always ended up going nowhere and failed mostly because the discussion itself was too broad. There was also dissention over governance as well as ambiguity over the cost. Now a simple merger between Snohomish County Fire District 1 and Lynnwood Fire Department has being proposed and it may be the right time for such a merger.
The City of Lynnwood is growing vertically and the cost of fire service is also projected to go through the roof. Of relevance to this discussion, Lynnwood is completely surrounded by the coverage area of Snohomish County Fire District 1.
Furthermore, the efficiency of consolidation could save the city millions of dollars each year, and this new money could be used to fix roads. An approval of a regional fire authority might cause property taxes to go up a bit or not. This would be decided by the city council. The response time and service to citizens would virtually the same and the same professionals would be there to help in time of need. Fire District 1 and Lynwood Fire Department already currently respond side by side on every call in the Lynnwood area.
While this merger should seem plausible to any objective person, there is a small but vocal group in opposition. These few citizens seem intent on making this a political issue. They spread rumors during the last election season that fire service was at risk, which wasn’t and isn’t true.
In December 2015, the city council authorized a formal study to examine whether regional fire consolidation makes sense for Lynnwood. The results are due back to the city soon. Should the study recommend a consolidation, it will be interesting to see what the current city council has to say in this matter. Will they have the courage to approve a new and efficient approach to providing fire service and thereby obtain the funds to fix Lynnwood streets? Or, will they listen to the few in Lynnwood who want to politicize the matter and let the road system continue to collapse?
Sid Roberts lives in Lynnwood and is a former Lynnwood City Council member.
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