The Kirkland YES committee believes that if the 1.5 percent utility tax doesn’t pass, cuts will diminish essential services and harm the quality of life we have come to love in Kirkland. That would be true if the Kirkland City Council doesn’t consider saving money elsewhere. More than $3.8 million the council has not considered could be saved. The council made some bad choices.

Fear tactics are being used. What we should be afraid of?

Seniors quality of life is in jeopardy. There has been no rebuttal when the economists in Washington, D.C. said there will not be an increase in Social Security payments until 2012, yet seniors’ cost of living keeps going up. Utility cost keeps rising without new taxes. Yet, the city wants to raise taxes anyway. Many seniors may be forced to move and sell their homes or take out a reverse mortgage that is nothing more than a very expensive loan that must be repaid.

People are losing their jobs and businesses are failing. Higher taxes make it more difficult to sustain or improve their quality of life. Council should come up with a sustainable budget that insures continuation of expected services without unnecessary fee and tax increases.

An additional and highly inflationary 1.5 percent utility tax increase will seriously impact our ability to pay our bills. The cost of $6 per month per household is bogus. It will be much more. Cable cost will go up, phone cost will rise, and along with it, the new tax. On top of that, water, sewer, and garbage fees are increasing.

When state law limited private utility tax to 6 percent, they wanted to protect citizens from inflation. Kirkland is ignoring the same citizen concerns that caused the act to be passed in the first place.

Kirkland YES support of a return to business as usual fails to acknowledge an inexcusable budget management that got us into this mess in the first place. We’re in the hole. Council should manage what money they have just like us. We need to live within our means, so should the council.

Evidently, the council cares more for their budgets than ours. To impose an additional tax in hard times without an absolute irreversible provision for its removal when times get better is irresponsible.

Without savings, the $19 million debt grows monthly even without annexation. The council should have adopted a “sustainable” budget far before now. They should; however, they cut the wrong services.

And the money is there for council to serve citizens.

We don’t need more threats. We don’t need more bad decisions. We need good management.

What quality of life is Kirkland YES referring to? We all would like a walk in the park; however, balancing the budget that insures a continuation of services is not as easy as a walk in the park. We need to pay our bills. We can have the services we enjoy without a city that limits our ability to take care of ourselves, one that cares more about their budget than ours, one that puts cruel and unnecessary burdens on seniors, or a city that does not live within its means.

We do not need $2.2 million in additional taxes when $3.8 million can be saved to restore services to citizens that were unnecessarily cut.

Voters should read the pro and con statements in the voter’s pamphlet before they decide if they will benefit or not. Ask, what will a new unnecessary tax do for you?

Robert Style co-wrote the statement against Proposition No. 1 for the King County Voters’ pamphlet.