For years we’ve heard around the world about pirates and hijackers. Well, guess what — right here in Snohomish County, we have a hijacking going on by the empire of Marysville.
These pirates, with the approval of the Legislature, are annexing rural areas of Snohomish County around Marysville and calling it the city. In a big public meeting at the high school, people expressed concern about our taxes going up. But these pirates that run the city of Marysville said our taxes won’t go up.
Well, what they did was start new taxes on all of our utilities and then they had the nerve to send me a bill for what I call a rain water tax (SWM — surface water management). We found out that everyone on a well, not hooked up to city water, is being robbed with that same tax.
Annexation is also a problem in other areas around this county, like Bothell. This whole annexation thing is about power and money, building an empire. It’s all they can think about. There is no benefit whatever to those of us in the rural county. I realize that this empire of Marysville wants to eliminate all farm land because it doesn’t generate enough tax revenue. In our case, we have a 15-acre farm in open space. This new $800 a year rain tax is more than I want to pay to this empire.
This kind of a tax does not help save or encourage the last berry farm in the Marysville area to stay in business. Of course Marysville can always get their strawberries from Mexico or China for their strawberry festival.
John C. Campbell
Marysville
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