FORKS – A new taxing district could automatically impose a tax which would go toward running the Forks Aquatics Center.
The Quillayute Valley Metropolitan Park District will go on the Nov. 6 ballot.
The ballot will be mailed out on Oct. 17 to those in the district which would have the same boundaries as the Quillayute Valley Park and Recreation District.
The new district would provide funding for the Forks pool, which has been closed since the election failures last year of two maintenance and operation levies.
The metropolitan district has the power to automatically tax 75 per $1,000 of assessed valuation.
Unlike the vote required by the park and recreation district attempting another levy, the new district must pass by a simple majority rather than a supermajority – 60 percent – that new levies require.
The owner of a $150,000 house would pay $112.50 yearly to support the new tax.
Also unlike the current park and recreation district, the new metropolitan district’s tax would be permanent.
No levy would be necessary in the future unless the district later wanted to raise it more than the allowable 1 percent.
The tax would provide most of the funds needed to run the pool – an estimated $300,000 per year to run.
The rest of the funds would come from the operation of the pool.
A restriction on the district is that the tax levied by the district added to the total taxes by other districts – including the city, fire district, hospital, library and county general – cannot exceed $5.90 per $1,000 of assessed valuation.
The budget for the pool assumes the district taxing at the highest rate of 75 cents per $1,000 assessed valuation, so that added to the rest of the taxes totals about $5.83 – so it is below the required barrier, according to a report created by a community committee to evaluate the needs of the aquatics center.
If approved by voters, the new metropolitan district would take over operations of the pool, but the park and recreation district would continue to exist because the bond which built the pool is still indebted to that district.
“Creating this district makes the metropolitan district eligible for timber money, to get a share of the property excise taxes and they can still be eligible to receive donations – but the biggest benefit would be it would be a reliable source of funding for the pool,” said Sandra Carter, chairwoman of the parks and recreation district board of directors.
“The pool could be open and programs could develop without them having to bear the cost of an election and without the fear of a bad election and it having to close again.”
Carter said the tax also would be beneficial because the money would stay in the community.
“I think what is important to remember, too, is that we pay lots of taxes, but these stay right here,” Carter said.
“Every bit of them stay in our community to serve the people who are paying them.”
Not all community members are sold on the idea.
Mark Soderlind, a Forks resident, has spoken out against the new district.
It isn’t, he said, that he is against the pool – in fact he voted for the pool construction and for both of the failed levies, he said.
Soderlind disagrees with the format of the new district.
“It is such a low threshold to get it voted in,” he said.
“And once you vote it in, it is in forever.
“Forever is too long.”
