League members met on April 16th to hear the latest from League leaders and Duncan Clauson of the Snohomish County Elections Office, and to hear about some of the outcomes of the Snohomish County Fiscal Sustainability Task Force. Member Nick Maxwell represented the League as one of the eight Task Force members that fulfilled these objectives:
- Build a shared understanding of Snohomish County’s revenue and expenditure trends.
- Learn about the drivers and constraints affecting the County’s fiscal outlook.
- Examine and discuss potential short- and long-term strategies to strengthen fiscal stability.
- Ensure that recommendations reflect the County’s values of excellent service, common-sense government, equity, innovation, and health.
- Provide a final advisory report for the County Executive summarizing key findings and recommendations for Executive and Council consideration.
Nick focused on the inadequacy of the current property tax structure coupled with inflation to even begin to cover the revenue gap in county government, both now and in the future. (Summary: “no one gets what they want” – property owners get a bigger tax bite, and the county continues to collect diminishing revenues!)
The final report of the Fiscal Sustainability Task Force can be found at this
link. It’s 39 pages of valuable information that is recommended reading.
On another matter of League concern, Duncan Clauson reviewed previous remarks about the effects of USPS changes and strongly emphasized the importance of using ballot boxes, with the intent of asking all of us to emphasize their importance as well. Duncan also pivoted to the security and effectiveness of voting by mail, and to that end he shared a video prepared by the American Postal Workers Union that provides you with necessary reasons to protect voting by mail. You can view it
here.
Following the committee updates -- which you can see at this
link, –- we were reminded of three important meeting dates. Everyone is encouraged to attend:
- Saturday, May 16 – LWVSC Annual Meeting.
- June 6-7 – LWVWA Council in Lacey, WA.
- September – Annual LWVSC Fire-up! Kickoff – date and place TBA.
You can register for the
annual meeting and the
Council by clicking on the event posted on that date on the League website.
Thank you for your attention to this year’s all-member meetings – see you at the Annual Meeting on May 16th!