I just received the latest glossy-print City of Snohomish Quarterly Magazine which is subsidized with city tax dollars.
In reality, the magazine is nothing more than a slick campaign brochure, flattering the incumbent elected officials. (Six of the eight elected positions will be on the November ballot.)
In the magazine’s Mayor’s Message, John Kartak lobbies for a full-time CEO-like salary, comparing himself with the former city manager. Kartak fails to mention the city, population 10,000, already has a full-time city administrator position at an annual cost of over $200,000. The city also has a police chief captain, pulling down an annual salary of over $200,000. The chief captain supervises 18 commissioned police officers.
I know the city government is rolling in dough and having a hard time justifying its spending practices. As of January, the city had a General Fund Reserve Ratio of 40 percent when normally it should be only 10 percent to 15 percent. This is why we see the city going into the wedding event venue business with a six-figure operations manager and giving away huge, no strings-attached, property tax breaks and incentives to developers in the Pilchuck District and now in the putative Midtown District.
It seems City Hall has an insatiable appetite for more local tax dollars even after it knows it is slated to receive millions of dollars this year from the Biden Administration’s recovery relief and jobs infrastructure programs.
The city no longer needs a separate Transportation Benefit District (TBD) tax.
Vote “NO” on the City’s Proposition 1 ballot measure in August.
Morgan Davis
Snohomish
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