In trying to justify putting the Utility Tax increase on the ballot, all of the council except one, Councilmember Greenway, threw their sincerity out the window by not funding “core” services and developing a “sustainable budget.” The new budget figures show debt has grown from $8 million to $10 million even without annexation. Annexation will make that worst and decrease our services. A Utility Tax increase will add to our debt, not reduce it. Instead of working for the citizens, the council is working against us.
The Mayor said the last thing he wanted to do is to reduce services, yet he voted for annexation. He could have asked for an advisory vote on annexation but refused. He refuses to make the necessary budget cuts that would preclude the necessity of putting the Utility Tax increase on the ballot.
Councilmember Sternoff has changed from being a promoter of sustainable budgets to one who increased our debt with his annexation vote, with his failure to reduce expenditures that would produce meaningful savings without reducing services, and to put an unnecessary Utility Tax increase on the ballot. His leadership is lacking.
He and the six other Councilmembers could have saved $3.8 million from the budget but chose not to do so. Instead they nitpicked, nickeled and dimed with small reductions that reduce services to the citizens while retaining high salaries going to the City Manager’s office for ineffective programs that will have little impact on services to citizens. The Communications Officer supervises no one but is paid a supervisor’s salary and has a job that only puts a spin on things that is self-serving to government, not citizens. Her $126,000 salary for ghost writing for the Manager and the Council does not serve the citizens of Kirkland. The Economic Development expenditures exceed $256,500, a cost that has produced almost no Economic Development in Kirkland. Instead of wasting money, the City Manager should include their jobs in his job description as it was before hiring additional staff. The reduction could be made without reducing services to our citizens.
Councilmember McBride said it was appropriate for the citizens to vote on tax increases. Why were we not asked sooner on the many tax increases she and other Councilmembers enacted? The only reason she is asking the public to vote instead of Council on raising the Utility Tax is she lacks the authority to do so. Otherwise she would raise our taxes without our vote.
A lot has been said that we need to restore services. It became the reason to put the Utility Tax increase on the ballot, a tax that would not be necessary if Council had done their job. They are the same Councilmembers that lowered our service levels by voting for annexation. They are the same Councilmembers that refused to give us a vote on annexation but now say it’s all right to vote on unnecessary increases they created.
It’s time for citizens to remember that restoring the budget to previous levels is what got us in this mess in the first place. The Council has spent more than we take in. So it’s sad that Council has scuttled sincerity. They are not really interested in a “sustainable” budget with “core” services. It’s what we have to live with until the next election.
Robert Style, Kirkland
