Voters throughout King County clearly do not want to pay more to license their vehicles and will not favor a sales tax increase – at least, not when the additional money pulled from their pocketbooks will be used primarily to support mass transit.
Enumclaw voters, like their counterparts in all corners of the county, faced increased taxes and license tab fees due to Proposition 1. That measure culminated April 22 in a decisive defeat. As of April 23, the official count showed Prop 1 failing by a 55-45 margin.
So, the local question is, what does Prop 1’s defeat mean to Enumclaw?
The easy answer is, local folks will keep more dollars in their pockets. The expanded answer is, fewer of their city’s deteriorating streets will be repaired during the years to come.
Proposition 1 was clearly more beneficial to big-city and suburban residents who use Metro Transit in greater numbers. In less-congested pockets of King County, voters could easily wonder what benefit they would see if the measure passed. Approximately 60 percent of the additional funds brought in by Prop 1 would have gone to mass transit, which gets relatively little use in the southern portion of the county.
The “con” statement in the county’s voters pamphlet maintained that residents of south King County pay 31 percent of the transit taxes while receiving 22 percent of the transit service.
Proposition 1 called for a $60 fee added to all vehicle license tabs, as well as a sales tax increase of one-tenth of 1 percent.
Anticipating what Seattle leaders would do and beating them to the punch, members of the Enumclaw City Council – acting as a local Transportation Benefit District – voted in February to implement at citywide license tab fee of $20 per vehicle. The directive has wound its way through state governmental circles and will be assessed starting in September. The money, which will amount to about $210,000 annually, can only be used to repair existing streets.
If Proposition 1 had passed, Enumclaw would have received an additional $290,000 per year. And license tab fees would have jumped an additional $80 annually – $20 because of what the city did and $60 due to Proposition 1. When an existing tax expired, the net increase would have been $60 per year for every vehicle registered to an Enumclaw resident.
A study of the city street system, conducted a few years ago, recommended that approximately $500,000 is needed each year to keep city streets at an acceptable level. So, if Proposition 1 would have passed, the combined revenues would nearly meet Enumclaw’s identified demand.
