Yesterday, you saw in the newspaper (and I blogged the story Friday) my story about tonight’s Bellingham City Council meeting where they’re scheduled to vote on a 1 percent property tax increase.
State law allows for a maximum increase of 1 percent, plus banked capacity. That capacity is previous levying authority that a taxing jurisdiction decided not to take. Instead, they pass a resolution “banking” that capacity.
The city of Bellingham currently has about $234,000 in banked capacity the council can opt to take.
City Councilman Stan Snapp made a motion in committee just now to take that money. The motion didn’t have a second, but it sounds like it’ll come back up for discussion tonight and based on the discussion I just heard, there is a possibility there could be support for that.
City Council members were being asked to increase the property tax levy by 1 percent. It amounts to $180,639 in new taxes spread out amongst all city taxpayers. Your take would be about $6.18 if you owned a $300,000 home. A $250,000 homeowner would pay about $5.15 based on preliminary information from the Whatcom County Assessor’s Office.
It was unclear how much Snapp wanted to tap of the banked capacity, but if they took all $243,000 it would add about another $8 to the increase.
That means an increase of about $15 for a $300,000 home per year.
Like I said, it received no second in committee, but Finance Committee Chairman Gene Knutson (who, along with Councilwoman Louise Bjornson, also backed at least the 1 percent increase … strong signals the council will at least take the 1 percent tonight) said it’ll likely be brought up again at the night meeting.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:33 PM
TIMES ARE TIGHT, I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THEM DOING WHAT THEY HAVE TO DO, BUT MAYBE JUST RAISING IT MORE THAN 1% AND KEEPING SOME MONEY IN THE BANK MIGHT BE DESIRABLE ALSO.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:39 PM
So Sam., what does it say to you? I guess I can’t get all riled up about property tax increases. It’s the price of gas that the oil companies are dinging me with and the price of doctor visits and meds that are doing me in. I am not aware of the subtleties of using banked capacity.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:57 PM
Just when I thought Stan Snapp was my favorite sitting Bham City councilman he had to go and do this. I bet if he had faced some competition in this last election he may not have proposed this.
Don’t blame me, I voted for Damon Gray.
November 9th, 2009 at 8:58 PM
Poppa, read me that fairy tale again about how growth pays its way.
November 14th, 2009 at 1:06 AM
Uh… Stan was your favorite sitting Bham City Council member… back when you voted for his opponent?
That’s an interesting way of playing favorites, Hammer.
Now that he’s no longer your favorite, you are going to vote… for him?
November 14th, 2009 at 1:48 AM
Once upon a time, in a magical fairyland kingdom, there lived a wizard named Adam Smith.
Mr Smith conjured up a magical invisible hand. This hand was assigned one true purpose. That purpose was to guide the mechanisms of a Free Market so that all of the kingdom could live happily ever after. And growth would pay for itself.
And it worked perfectly.
Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the Magical Free Market Hand is never seen. That’s because it’s magical.
There are many legends about how the Mr Smith conjured up the hand. Some people say he did so by magically pulling it out of his own wizardly butt. We call those people Kommeeze. Kommeeze are bad.
In fact, Kommeeze are sooo bad that they used all of their evil magical powers to invent a time machine and go back to the 19th century and use their even more invisible hands to cause a series of very sad economic times called Depressions.
Kommeeze first entered the kingdom in the 20th century, and so the unsuspecting subjects didn’t realize that it was really the Kommeeze fault for the bad economic times from before they existed. Not the innocent Invisible Free Market Hand, who was framed for the malicious actions of the time-travelling Kommee Konspiracy and their Even-More-Invisible Hands.
And then some other stuff happened.
And then Ronald Reagan became King and defeated all of the Kommeeze all by himself, and totally without the help of any one else. Some people say Reagan did not stop all of the Kommeeze all by himself and that the Kings that ruled before him did their part too. The people who say that are Kommeeze. And even though Ronald Reagan totally defeated all of them all by himself, they are still to blame for everything that went wrong when he was king and made it look like he make mistakes. Which he didn’t.
And then some other stuff happened.
And then Bill Clinton became King and did a very naughty thing with a damsel in the Throne Room of the White Castle.
And everything bad that happens in the fairy tale kingdom became magically his fault.
The End.
Sleep tight.
Don’t let the Kommeeze bite.