A recent guest editorial by City Councilmember Dave Asher accused the opponents of Proposition 1 of fearmongering. As a co-chair of the opposition committee, I feel compelled to respond.
When the Kirkland City Council deliberated about creating a Metropolitan Park District (MPD) as the funding mechanism for an aquatic center, they acknowledged that there were legitimate concerns with transferring so much power from the citizens to the city council. They attempted to mitigate those concerns by committing to require public advisory votes to approve other major expenditures and establish a citizen advisory committee for oversight. Advisory votes and committee recommendations are not binding, and sometimes even well-intentioned politicians believe that they know better than taxpayers about how to spend our money. The proponents of Proposition 1 contend that if councilmembers act against the citizens’ will then they can be voted out of office. This opportunity most always arrives years after the action and, by then the voters have no way to reverse the decisions and tax increases that have been made. The damage has been done.
The city council concluded their deliberations by saying that they would let the voters decide if they wanted to fund an aquatic center by creating a park district. That decision requires the voters to understand the ramifications of creating a park district. Unfortunately, the city has deliberately chosen to obscure the potential negative consequences of a park district. They present Proposition 1 as a vote about getting an aquatic center. The Fall 2015 Kirkland Parks catalog of classes and programs heavily promotes the Aquatic and Recreation Center (ARC) and implies that the vote is all about the ARC. In the voter’s pamphlet you will find an Explanatory Statement prepared by the city. It is modeled after the statement prepared by the city of Seattle for its park district measure in 2014. But it omits two key sentences from the Seattle statement that are necessary for Kirkland voters to fully understand what they are deciding. There is no mention that the park district could levy additional property tax above the current restrictions that state law imposes, and that the District could only be dissolved or its actions reversed by the city council, but not by [Kirkland voters].”
Kirkland opted to replace those key disclosures with a description of their agreement for advisory protections if Proposition 1 is passed. That agreement, if adopted, could be amended or terminated in the future by the city council without any voter approval. The fact that any such agreement could be terminated without voter approval was also disclosed in Seattle’s explanatory statement.
Our opposition to Proposition 1 should not be construed as opposition to a much needed aquatic center. There are other ways to fund an aquatic center for Kirkland without requiring voters to give up their right to decide on parks projects and related tax increases. A regular bond should be used that specifies the location, size and cost of an aquatic center before there is a vote. Proposition 1 essentially gives the city council a blank check for the biggest, most expensive parks project in city history.
I and members of my opposition committee are personally committed to working for a Kirkland aquatic center that is not funded by creation of a metropolitan park district. We are confident that it can be accomplished with the broad support of Kirkland citizens.
Conversely, there has been talk from some city council members that if Prop 1 fails then there will be no aquatic center in Kirkland. Some might call that fearmongering…
Rick Whitney is the co-chair of the No on Proposition 1 committee and a Kirkland resident.
