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. COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES
APRIL 16, 2002
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Council President Tim Clark, Connie Epperly, Leona Orr,
Bruce White, Rico Yingling
STAFF PRESENT: Dena Laurent, Mike Martin, Jim Schneider, Kurt Hanson, Jackie Bicknell
PUBLIC PRESENT: Doug Levy
The workshop began at 5:10 PM.
End of Session Mini-Briefinu
Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Dena Laurent said that Senator Karen Keiser,
Representative Dave Upthegrove, Representative Shay Schual-Berkle, Representative Jack
Cairnes, and Representative Geoff Simpson would be coming to the council meeting that night.
Everyone would get a thank you plaque. Beginning on January 1, 2003,Kent would be
represented by only two districts and there would be six representatives and senators working for
the City.
Economic Development. We had the statement, "The City of Kent will continue to push for
additional funding in Economic Development financing tools" and we've talked at length about
• the $900,000 reserved for Kent Station that we were fortunate enough to have designated as one
of the economic stimulus projects that was approved. There were also a couple of mini TIF bills
or Tax Increment Financing that's been on our agenda for a number of years.
Legislative Consultant Doug Levy said he characterized these as baby steps but they were an
important precedent in that there were a couple of places now in statute that the legislature said,
on a local level you could take sales and excise taxes and bond against them. Ideally,we'd like
to be able to do more than that and look at future increments of state tax too. But this year there
were two bills passed that at least set the precedent, and the whole concept of taking money and
bonding against it for economic development makes sense to us. One of the bills was called the
Community Renewal Bill and it allows a few more tools on taking blighted areas and
redeveloping them. Another one was called the Main Street Bill and it says you would take your
own sales tax and set up an area and bond against your own local sales tax.
Dena Laurent continued with Finance/Local Revenues and Unfunded Mandates Prevention. In
the summertime, we had a high level of both the House and Senate deferring from adopting new
taxes. Those weren't forthcoming, so that may be bad but the other good thing is they didn't do
anything to us in terms of tax exemptions. The one thing you'd probably point out is the back-
fill. This is the motor vehicle excise tax back-fill that had been promised by the previous
session. Fortunately May didn't budget for it because we thought that we wouldn't get it. In
exchange,however, there was a temporary lowering of the PERS and LEOFF contribution rates
that May had costed, and that will save us just over$500,000. That's more than we were going
to get in the back-fill. It's a one-time thing,but it's good news nevertheless.
Council Workshop,4/16/02 2
Doug Levy added that the other one that probably jumps off the page is an effort all session long
(led by King County) to get new countywide utility tax authority. I think the Suburban Cities, in
general, saw that as not a good idea to have countywide utility tax on any existing city utility
taxes, and in a time when people,particularly in this part of the county, were holding up their
hands and saying they didn't want to see additional tax burdens imposed. We ended up being a
bit of a bad guy and joining some other cities and opposing that and that did not go through.
That will be a controversial one again next year as King County will be back again with some
kind of proposal. I think there is some general sympathy that counties as a rule have less taxing
authority than cities. They don't have a utility tax or B&O tax. I think there's an awareness that
they are generally spending seven cents of every dime on the criminal justice system. I think
there was also a lot of resistance to King County coming in right after some of the initiative votes
and saying the only way we can solve our problems is with more taxing authority. There's
nothing else possible and the utility tax is the only one we'll accept and so there was clearly a lot
of resistance to that, Democrat and Republican both.
Dena Laurent continued with Public Works. We had success in getting the additional $10 million
low interest loan for our Second Supply Pipeline Project so that's something we've watched very
carefully. We received great support from our Representatives. Transportation: We've talked a
lot about this during this session. In fact, we're planning to come back to you at your second
workshop in May and go over in greater detail what is included and what the process will be for
each of the transportation packages so that you have a really clear understanding of where things
are headed. Later in the fall, as things change,we will be back to update you.
Doug Levy continued with Water Rights: There was a very specific issue to us and then a more
global issue. The more global one: the legislature formed a group of 8 legislators and three
members of the Governor's administration and took several months to try and deal with water
rights and water supply needs of growing areas like ours, instream flows for fish and how some
of the agricultural communities get penalized for using water, and moving water could change
what they call the relinquishment law and infrastructure needs for water. It was primarily a
bomb. There was very little that came out of the session and it was one of those issues where the
legislature made a calculated decision—it had to have complete consensus, and I can tell you
from spending several years at Olympia, it's hard to get complete consensus on anything in the
state capitol. So, there was a very minimalist bill that was passed. We actually forwarded it in
an individual bill dealing with some of our ground water sources and our desire to be able to
move back and forth and use different sources from within the well fields and have more
flexibility without going to the Department of Ecology each time. There was some sympathy
and we got a hearing but the bill didn't pass. I know we have certain areas within the well fields
where either growth or the recharge problems make it desirable to tap a different part of the
ground water system. Right now,we have to go through a very elaborate process with asking the
Department of Ecology to review those things. It's kind of cumbersome. So whether we want to
go back and try that again in the next session is a conversation at the staff level and ultimately
the elected level as to how you want to direct that.
Dena Laurent continued with a summary of all of the initiatives and referenda that are out—
who's behind them, when they're going to go to a vote and who has to vote on it. The first,
commonly referred to as the Eyman initiative, I-776, is an initiative to the people and will be on
Council Workshop,4/16/02 3
the November ballot - if it secures enough signatures by July 51". Doug Levy said he had not
seen any polling data on I-776. Obviously, it's a well organized initiative campaign and could
... get enough signatures. It's getting into some of those areas in the Central Puget Sound region
where we funded some pretty important things. The $15 vehicle fee is a little over$750,000 a
year to us because it's collected by the county and is spread evenly across the cities. Those are
important sources of dollars at a time where the gas tax has been applied for a number of years
and the motor vehicle excise tax went away except for the $30 piece.
Dena Laurent said the initiative on page 2, I-780, requires public officials to take the WASL test.
Doug Levy said that would mean elected officials would be tested. I'm pretty sure this is a
University of Washington professor who sees the whole idea of the testing as he doesn't like it
and this is his way of trying to point. The other two that are kind of interesting—there's likely to
be a challenge to the unemployment insurance reform that the legislature passed. And the
interesting part of that is that a lot of the larger corporations like Boeing and Weyerhaeuser
pushed very hard for that and so I know they are going to be asked by a lot of different people to
contribute to a lot of things if they have to contribute to unemployment insurance initiatives
there's going to be a business initiative to tighten up the prior initiative 601 and then, of course,
there's going to be the state transportation which affects all of these large employers some so I
think going to be an interesting political science lesson to see how they respond to all of those.
But those will be a few of the biggies that will surface and I think capture the attention the next
few months.
The workshop adjourned at 5:45 PM.
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