On Fifth Avenue Northeast across from the Northgate branch library.
Update: A newly released Elway Poll finds that 74 percent of voters statewide surveyed last week said they supported higher local taxes for roads and 60 percent said they supported higher taxes for transit.
Note these are statewide findings, not just in King County where Prop. 1 is on the ballot.
It also seems to contradict a similar poll a year ago.
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Ballots for or against the tax hike to fund bus service and other transportation pieces must be postmarked by midnight next Tuesday, April 22.
Earlier this week our news partner The Seattle Times ran an explainer outlining the pros and cons of the proposal.
Among other things, it delves into the questions over bus drivers’ pay.
The proposal calls for a $60 car-tab fee and a tenth-of-a-cent sales-tax increase for roads and buses.
Voters are being asked to approve Proposition 1, which calls for a sales-tax boost of 0.1 percent, or a dime per $100 purchase; plus a yearly $60 car-tab fee, to replace a $20 fee that expires this summer. Metro would get 60 percent, while the remaining 40 percent would be split among city and county street departments.
Crosscut also has two quite different takes on the election. Conservative commentator and one-time gubernatorial candidate John Carlson argues against it here. Frustrated residents of First Hill – including Tom Gibbs, Metro’s first director – argue the opposite here.
It’s worth noting that the Seattle City Council is now considering an election later this year that would double the city’s parks levy, raising the annual cost for the owner of a $400,000 home from $76 to $168.
It would both maintain existing parks and add new ones, as well as fund new programs.
Here’s a Crosscut piece on parks published April 18th.
I have to be with Thomas here. The cash cow, aka Seattle residents, is drying up. Wasteful bloated local government and Unions need to be cut off the teat and sent off to lean up and get with the real working class people instead of taking advantage of them.
Dan, it’s not about punishing bus riders but holding King Count accountable for the way they spend our tax dollars. They cry ‘broke’ while continuing to provide lavish benefits to employees AND families, in addition to paying high salaries. Enough is enough.
The King County Government has 2,157 employees who make OVER $100,000 per year. I say we shove the pigs away from the trough and vote no.
I ride the bus, I own a house, I voted yes. Punishing bus riders because you don’t like the pay or benefits employees get is wrong.
You know what’s a real bargain? When government employee salaries and benefits are cut until they match those in the private sector. If we make government employees pay for their own health insurance and their own retirement, they can cut taxes, cut fares, and increase service.
The government employees’ interests are DIRECTLY against everybody else’s.
I have been “bargained” so many times. Never have my taxes gone down, or my electric, or my water, sewer garbage, none of it. My wages have been stagnant for years. Tax Freedom Day is May 6, more than five months of toil goes into government hands, only to be wasted by them.
Too much government, too much waste.
I woke up broke yesterday, and this morning, too.
Enough, already.
@Tami:
It would be a bargain if that was the only cist. Looking at one dollar amount only is a bit short sighted and how people allow themselves to slowly get nickled and dimed to death. This year its $14, next year its something else and that is just for metro. Add in all the other “small” amounts for everything else and one day you wake up broke.
$168 a year is $14 a month. If one uses roads, etc. daily, that is a bargain.
As Stuart Elway said, it’s one thing to say you’ll vote to support a tax increase, in a phone call, and quite another to vote for one; knowing voting ensures it comes to be. Additionally, as he mentioned, those opposed to the tax increase, said they were most likely to vote before Tuesday night’s deadline. If some of the results are leaked, before Tuesday, it might motivate some people to vote, who hadn’t intended to do so.
My hunch is it’s going to be close; so close, it’s too close to call.
No way. Until King County does away with 100% health covrrage for its employees, families, I will never support increases for Metro or any other Kong County initiative. Get with the times King County and make employees contribute to health care costs instead of asking taxpayers for more and more.