Editorial: DuPont voters should reject Proposition 1

The following Editorial was submitted to South Puget Sound News by DuPont resident and Citizens Against Prop 1 Committee Member, Mike Gorski.

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Mike Gorski

DuPont mayor and city council will choose a building over the citizens? public safety services contained within that building. This truth is at the core of DuPont Proposition 1, a ballot measure that seeks a levy lid lift that will increase the city?s property tax collections by 84 percent annually.

Last February, Mayor Michael Grayum stated in a memo to the newly formed Community Finance Committee that ?Not paying on the Civic Center is not an option.? That mandate was reaffirmed in a recent editorial by DuPont Councilman Mike Courts stating ?The civic center decision cannot be undone, and the debt payments will be made.? (TNT 10/4/2012) If there was any doubt that the Civic Center was more important than police and fire protection for its citizens, look no further than the 2013 city budget that threatens lay-off four firemen and a police officer if the levy fails.

In 2007 DuPont chose to eschew the obvious, bonding the capital facilities project, in favor of a financing plan that bypassed the voters altogether. DuPont issued Certificates of Participation, a ?nontraditional financing partnership with a private developer? (TNT-7/23/2007), laying a shaky foundation supported by Real Estate Excise Tax (REET).

How realistic was it to leverage REET dollars to finance such a project for 30 years? Simple math check: DuPont collects 0.5% of every real estate transaction. To make the annual $1.27 million lease payment, the city would need to sell nearly 847 houses a year with an average selling price of $300,000. That would be a turnover of more than 1/3 of the city?s total housing units every year until 2039. Even factoring in REET from commercial real estate, it would barely make a dent in the home sales requirements.

DuPont Proposition 1 transfers the cost of the Civic Center into the general fund where it will remain the only untouchable budget item. Untouchable regardless of the future economic climate and growth needs of a city with a finite amount of available commercial land and without an economic development plan.

DuPont citizens have a right to know how we got to insolvency regarding Civic Center debt, why we stand to lose public safety, and what assurances the citizens will have that such mistakes will not continue.

DuPont Proposition 1 bundles the cost of three SAFER grant firemen to the Civic Center debt to create a ballot proposition that cynically amplifies the outcome of the citizens? vote. DuPont city council knew as early as 2010 that they did not have the revenue to retain the SAFER grant firemen, but since that time they have done nothing to secure funding for these positions.

The DuPont Proposition 1 ballot does not contain binding language that will retain the firemen, just more generalized assurances from the very people who put citizens in this position in the first place. The only thing assured with the passage of this tax increase is that the out of town investors will continue to receive their 6.11% rate of return. A return guaranteed until 2019. Maybe the latter point is why you do not see a photograph of the Civic Center on the recent pro-investor bailout direct mail from the levy supporters. It is curious that the very reason there is a ballot proposition in this election doesn?t merit a significant mention; after all, nearly three-quarters of monies collected annually from the levy will be earmarked for a building, not safety.

DuPont citizens do not deserve the consistent invective coming from members of city council directed at property owners and those not supporting their past failed decisions or current misguided proposals. DuPont citizens don?t want someone else to pay their way, nor should citizens have to endure threats to cut services they already paid for in past approved ballots. Merriam-Webster defines that as extortion.

It is time for the DuPont mayor and council to stop holding public safety hostage by tying this complicated financing to our general fund for potentially the next 27 years. DuPont citizens deserve a solution that prioritizes public safety and embraces a more traditional approach to funding capital improvements.

There is a window of opportunity for DuPont to negotiate new terms on this debt and then to proceed in a manner that prevents continual service crises created by adding massive, long-term debt to our general fund. The solution will not be easy, but solutions to fix catastrophic failures seldom are a simple matter. The city also should segregate any capital expenditures from staffing requirements; placing public safety matters into a separate ballot proposition so that the voter can choose the service levels they desire.

The city of DuPont?s plan for ?moving forward? is to place its taxpayers on a treadmill of debt service.

I urge DuPont voters to reject Proposition 1.

- Mike Gorski, DuPont Resident, Citizens Against Prop 1 Committee Member

Source: http://www.southpugetsoundnews.com/editorials/editorial/

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