Voters should reject CT’s request

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, September 12, 2001

Community Transit took offense when we voted to keep more of our hard-earned money in the Passage of Initiative 695, the $30 car tab initiative. The transit unions sued us when we voted to give citizens veto power over tax hikes – they found a judge who thwarted the will of the people and overturned an initiative that passed statewide with nearly 60 percent support. And now they want to raise our taxes. Snohomish county consumers should beware.

Your neighbor won’t get out of his car if this tax hike passes. If Community Transit gets this tax hike, congestion will be entirely unaffected.

Proposition 1 would give Snohomish County the highest sales tax of any county in the state. Many county retailers and their employees will be hurt when the public figures out they can save money on big-ticket items by going to Skagit or King counties to make their purchases. Because of this, proceeds to Snohomish County from sales taxes would be inadvertently reduced, threatening county programs.

Washington Citizens for a Sound Economy believes there is a better way. Peter Drucker, a leading business guru, said, “Efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness is doing right things.” The transit system needs to get its house in order before it asks for more taxpayer money. They need to ask the hard questions of themselves.

One such hard question: “Does Community Transit still provide health club memberships to all employees?” Honest public answers to questions like this will enable Community Transit to improve their abysmal cost per service hour rating (Community Transit – $120.16; Everett Transit – $76.59) by the Washington state Department of Transportation (1999, the latest data available). By this performance measure, Community Transit is the least efficient transit agency in the state; their buses costing almost double the statewide median of $65.96 per hour.

Everett Transit has shown that it is possible to operate a comparable service with less. Everett Transit operates on .3 cents sales tax revenue. Community Transit currently operates on twice that – .6 cents… and that’s not enough for them! They want to increase it another .3 cents. I urge all Snohomish County taxpayers to vote no on Tuesday. There is a better way.

Director

Washington Citizens for a Sound Economy

Everett