City hires lobbyist to promote tax change

EDMONDS – The city of Edmonds is paying $5,000 for the chance to win $500,000.

Mike Doubleday, a professional lobbyist who last year successfully advocated in Olympia for two large-scale Edmonds projects, will work through the end of the year to push for a tax plan that could bring more money to the city.

The so-called sales tax “streamlining” plan would redirect collection of such revenues on delivered items from the city in which they are purchased to the city in which they are delivered. If an Edmonds resident buys a couch in Lynnwood and has it delivered to their home, the sales tax would go to Edmonds instead of Lynnwood as it does now.

The idea was hatched by a national coalition of state officials as a way to ultimately levy a tax on items bought over the Internet.

The plan has divided cities in the state into camps of “for” and “against,” generally depending on whether they stand to lose or gain. Edmonds would stand to gain an estimated $554,167 in annual sales-tax revenue over its 2002 level, according to the Association of Washington Cities (AWC) and is supporting the plan. On the other side, Lynnwood could lose $1.2 million annually and opposes it.

The Edmonds figure represents 14 percent of its 2002 tax revenue, while the Lynnwood figure equals 9 percent of its 2002 take.

The Edmonds City Council unanimously approved a contract Feb. 3 for Doubleday to lobby for the city through the end of the year, at a rate of $115 per hour for a total not to exceed $5,000.

He will also work for Bellevue and Burien. Bellevue stands to lose under the plan but is supporting it as a way to get to the Internet tax, Doubleday said. Seattle is taking a similar stance, he said.

“That’s why we’re doing this,” he said of the tax plan.

Some of the “loser” cities, as they’ve been called, will hope to get some mitigation money or get the redistribution amount cut in half if the measure passes.

“They would like to get some mitigation money out of this, and I think that’s fair,” Doubleday said.

Overall, though, “there’s a fair amount of opposition to it,” he said.

Edmonds has steadily cut its budget since the motor-vehicle excise tax was slashed following the passage of Initiative 695 in 1999. The biggest cut came in 2003 when the city cut 24 jobs and $1.3 million. The motor-vehicle excise tax was the primary source of funds the state had used to redistribute wealth to cities that did not receive large amounts of sales-tax revenue.

Not only will Doubleday speak at hearings and to legislators on behalf of the city regarding the plan, but the city will hear from him in the form of regular reports, Mayor Gary Haakenson said.

“He’s our ears down there,” Haakenson said.

Last year, Doubleday worked for Edmonds to advocate for funding for the Edmonds Crossing mulitimodal transit center and for the new Edmonds Center for the Arts (see related story, this page).

Doubleday, based in Shoreline, has been an independent contract lobbyist since 1998. He previously worked for the public affairs firm Gogerty and Stark and served as an Olympia lobbyist for the city of Seattle during Norm Rice’s two terms as mayor.