Expenses don’t warrant rate increase

I got my notice yesterday from Fire District 1, about “restoring” the levy rate to 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. The claim is that “state tax limitation and increases in assessed property values” have caused this rate to “erode” to 43 cents since 2005.

What this really means is that taxes have gone up by the voter-approved 1 percent, but they haven’t gone up at the same astronomical rate as have assessments. They are now asking for a 16 percent tax increase to match those assessments. (My own assessment, which is no doubt typical of many, has gone up 50 percent since 2005.)

I do not believe that fire district EMS expenses (or almost anything else, for that matter) have gone up as the same phenomenal rate as property assessments in Snohomish County over the last three years.

Please join me in voting “no” on Proposition 1 in the Aug. 21 primary election.

Denis Hayner

Lynnwood