PORT ANGELES — Voices cracking with emotion, Clallam County commissioners on Tuesday voiced their support for a one-10th of 1 percent sales tax for mental health services and then unanimously adopted the measure.
The tax increase will take effect April 7 and cost taxpayers $1 for every $1,000 they spend on taxable merchandise, or about $20 a year for an average Clallam County family.
The county sales tax will climb from 8.3 percent to 8.4 percent.
Commissioners Mike Chapman, R-Port Angeles, and Steve Tharinger, D-Dungeness, held back tears as they spoke. Both men later said they had close family members who died as a result of substance abuse or mental illness.
Theirs weren’t the only emotions as 34 citizens spoke at a public hearing in the Clallam County Courthouse. Many of them told of brain-disordered or drug-dependent loved ones.
