We’ll know August 5, 2008 when the council has its next regular meeting. There was a hearing held Tuesday, July 22nd and the Fire Chief made his case for having the voters decide in the November election whether to approve an additional 25 cent per thousand property tax levy on top of the current County 25 cent levy.
There is now talk of delaying this issue to March of 2009 to allow more time to consider it. This will be real interesting. The all Republican City Council is faced with a tax proposal and an option to punt. This is where we separate the leaders from the punters!
A minority of public hearing testimony complained that they needed more time to evaluate the levy. This is B.S. and I don’t mean Bruce Smith, but I do mean Bull Shit!! They’ll have 3 months before the November 4th election to decide how they want to vote. Delaying this issue to March of next year is political cowardice. This isn’t something that sprung up over night and each councilmember knew this was coming for as long as 2 years. The November election will likely see an 80% or more turnout, while a March election would be lucky to garner 50%. That means about 28,000 Yakima voters in November compared to approximately 17,00 in March of 2009. While some Republicans may find it uncomfortable to support a tax increase during the general election, I find it amusing as to how they plan on getting out of this.
The EMS Levy deserves to be on the November ballot. The more citizens voting on important tax measures the better. Whether voters approve or not, I think the result would truly reflect the will of the people in the November election. Its my guess that Norm Johnson, who is running for the open seat for the State Legislature, is keeping his fingers crossed that the council postpones the levy vote till after the general election. I’ll bet that B.S. (Bruce Smith) will be pushing his puppets to punt! We’ll know more on August 5th. In the meantime watch the rhetoric build for a delay!