Civic center plan is way out of line

The cost of Mountlake Terrace’s proposed new civic center is almost embarrassing in its scale. The number is five times larger than the figure in our most recent budget, so large that the City Council can’t fund it without a public vote, their preferred option. The city portion of your property taxes will increase 57 percent. Even by the standards of a council that simply ignored citizen discontent with the Town Center zoning precondition of their new monument, this is chutzpah of breathtaking proportions.

How out of step are these people? Within a prolonged recession and steadily declining city revenues, they have nonetheless commissioned a $240,000 design of this building, which they are not even sure they can ever fund. Kiss that money goodbye. Remember that when they whistle past your wallet crying about essential public services that may need to be cut back. Remember also that, without comment, the council spends $40,000 per year in order to just talk to Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell and Jay Inslee. Waste has many faces. We must hire a lobbyist who sets up a meet and greet with these three. Is it at one of the city manager’s regular coffee klatches here in Terrace where all three were elected? No; to get their attention about our legitimate infrastructure needs, city officials must fly to D.C. Don’t these people have local staff who drink coffee?

Doesn’t the city receive grant money all the time without expensive intermediaries? If every town our size needs a line item in their budget of $40,000 to talk with the people they elect to D.C., what does that say about those people in D.C.?

Pay to play isn’t just selling Senate seats in Illinois. You have to pay to play the federal earmarks game, too. What do you think? It’s your money.

Leonard French

Mountlake Terrace

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

toon
Editorial cartoons for Monday, July 7

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

A Volunteers of America Western Washington crisis counselor talks with somebody on the phone Thursday, July 28, 2022, in at the VOA Behavioral Health Crisis Call Center in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: Dire results will follow end of LGBTQ+ crisis line

The Trump administration will end funding for a 988 line that serves youths in the LGBTQ+ community.

Comment: Supreme Court’s majority is picking its battles

If a constitutional crisis with Trump must happen, the chief justice wants it on his terms.

Saunders: Combs’ mixed verdict shows perils of over-charging

Granted, the hip-hop mogul is a dirtbag, but prosecutors reached too far to send him to prison.

Comment: RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel turns misinformation into policy

The new CDC panel’s railroading of a decision to pull a flu vaccine foreshadows future unsound decisions.

FILE — The journalist Bill Moyers previews an upcoming broadcast with staffers in New York, in March 2001. Moyers, who served as chief spokesman for President Lyndon Johnson during the American military buildup in Vietnam and then went on to a long and celebrated career as a broadcast journalist, returning repeatedly to the subject of the corruption of American democracy by money and power, died in Manhattan on June 26, 2025. He was 91. (Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)
Comment: Bill Moyers and the power of journalism

His reporting and interviews strengthened democracy by connecting Americans to ideas and each other.

Brooks: AI can’t help students learn to think; it thinks for them

A new study shows deeper learning for those who wrote essays unassisted by large language models.

Do we have to fix Congress to get them to act on Social Security?

Thanks to The Herald Editorial Board for weighing in (probably not for… Continue reading

toon
Editorial: Using discourse to get to common ground

A Building Bridges panel discussion heard from lawmakers and students on disagreeing agreeably.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, June 27, 2025. The sweeping measure Senate Republican leaders hope to push through has many unpopular elements that they despise. But they face a political reckoning on taxes and the scorn of the president if they fail to pass it. (Kent Nishimura/The New York Times)
Editorial: GOP should heed all-caps message on tax policy bill

Trading cuts to Medicaid and more for tax cuts for the wealthy may have consequences for Republicans.

Alaina Livingston, a 4th grade teacher at Silver Furs Elementary, receives her Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic for Everett School District teachers and staff at Evergreen Middle School on Saturday, March 6, 2021 in Everett, Wa. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Editorial: RFK Jr., CDC panel pose threat to vaccine access

Pharmacies following newly changed CDC guidelines may restrict access to vaccines for some patients.

Comment: Keep county’s public lands in the public’s hands

Now pulled from consideration, the potential sale threatened the county’s resources and environment.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.