EVERETT — Help might be on the way for dozens of homeowners told they must pay a new property tax to support Sound Transit, despite being ineligible to vote in the agency’s taxing district.
That’s if a state lawmaker’s proposed fixes make their way through the legislative sausage factory in Olympia.
State Rep. Mark Harmsworth filed a bill Thursday that would ensure that the district boundaries only include whole parcels.
“I don’t care if the property is in or out — just don’t cut the property in half,” the Mill Creek Republican said.
Harmsworth dropped his bill about transit boundaries the same day The Daily Herald published a story featuring a Snohomish-area couple blindsided by the transit tax. The lawmaker had heard about the problem from another homeowner in the same situation.
Harmsworth said he expected House Bill 1770 to garner bipartisan support. Meanwhile, he’s drafting a separate piece of legislation to address paying taxes without getting a chance to vote on them. That’s something that “should never have happened in the first place,” he said.
About 50 land parcels in unincorporated Snohomish County are split by the boundaries for Sound Transit. The agency serves Snohomish, King and Pierce counties, including urban areas from Everett south to DuPont. It’s listed on tax statements as the Regional Transit Authority or RTA.
Sound Transit’s boundaries were drawn up in 1996. Over the years, growth boundaries have changed and new lots have been created that didn’t necessarily correspond to those lines.
In November, voters passed the Sound Transit 3 ballot measure, a $53.8 billion package that would take shape over 25 years. Among other goals, it aims to bring Link light rail to Everett by 2036.
ST3 added a property tax to the agency’s funding mix for the first time. Before that, Sound Transit had relied mostly on sales tax and an excise tax on car-tab renewals.
Affected property owners were upset to read a Dec. 8 letter from the county assessor informing them they would have to start paying property taxes to Sound Transit.
One of the letters went out to George Murray, who lives in the Kingsridge neighborhood east of Mill Creek. Murray, who has lived in his home since 2005, had avoided paying Sound Transit’s share of the car-tab renewal because so little of his land is in the district.
“I don’t mind paying my fair share of taxes — it’s giving me an opportunity to vote on it,” he said. “I probably would have voted yes. But I didn’t have an opportunity.”
Harmsworth got to work on the issue after Murray called a few weeks ago.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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