SEQUIM — The Sequim City Council has approved placing a one-tenth-of-1-percent “public safety” sales tax hike proposal on the August ballot.
The final vote on the resolution Monday night was 5-1, with Councilman Erik Erichsen dissenting and Councilman Bill Huizinga absent.
The proposed tax, which would generate about $280,000 annually, would fund a new police station in Sequim, moving the Police Department out of a rented space in a mall at 609 W. Washington St., where it has been housed for 16 years.
“This city has had a police force for 100 years,” said Sequim Police Chief Bill Dickinson.
“There is no reason to expect the Police Department won’t be around for another 100 years.”
The police station is used by the Sequim Police Department, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, the State Patrol, the U.S. Border Patrol and any other law enforcement agency working in Sequim, Dickinson said.
Facility’s flaws
The present facility cannot be accredited by the state, Dickinson told the council, because it does not meet Department of Corrections standards and has been found lacking in audits.
There is no secure transfer area for moving people taken into custody from police cars to holding cells, no area for suspect interviews and inadequate safe storage for firearms and drugs, he said.
During interviews, suspects are mixed with customers and visitors in the Police Department.
That hasn’t caused problems, he said, but the risk is there.
The department now pays $69,000 annually in rent.
It makes no sense for the Police Department to continue paying every month to use the space, to have nothing to show for it after years, when the city can own its own purpose-built police station, Dickinson said.
The council has not chosen a place for a new station.
The proposed tax would primarily draw its income from big-box stores such as Costco, City Manager Steve Burkett said.
The tax would not apply to food or other nontaxable items.
Erichsen opposed
In his opposition to the measure, Erichsen said the tax is nothing more than taking money from the people and returning very little.
“It’s nothing more than fear mongering of people who want a tax,” Erichsen said.
“It’s all smoke and mirrors.
“You’re voting wrong.”
Councilman Ted Miller disagreed.
In the end, it is up to the voters, not the council, whether Sequim wants to pay for a new police station, Miller said.
“The city is wholly owned by taxpayers,” Miller said.
The issue is something the voters need to vote on, he said.
Burkett said the tax increase would be a good deal for Sequim residents.
“Sixty percent of this tax would be paid for by people who live outside of Sequim,” he said.
Sequim’s share
If Sequim waited for Clallam County to propose its own public safety sales tax, at a rate of one-tenth of 1 percent, Sequim residents would pay a third of $1 million expected to be raised by the proposed county tax, but the city would receive only $88,000 annually as its share of the countywide tax, Mayor Ken Hays said.
The county would receive about $40,000 of the funds generated by a Sequim sales tax, based on state tax law.
If passed by the voters in August, the city’s tax would cost $25 to $30 per year for each $30,000 spent on taxable goods in Sequim, Burkett said.
Most people don’t spend anywhere near that amount on taxable goods each year, he said.
How much tax proposed?
Sequim now has the highest sales tax rate in Clallam County at 8.6 percent.
The August measure, if approved by voters, would raise it to 8.7 percent.
But Clallam County also is considering asking for additional public safety sales taxes in 2012.
The county is expected to ask for a one-tenth-of-1-percent tax rate increase to support juvenile justice, which could be on the February ballot, Burkett said.
And the county also is considering an additional public safety tax rate hike proposal for up to three-tenths of 1 percent for the county jail, which could be on the August or November 2012 ballot, he said.
Clallam County sales taxes everywhere except Sequim are now at a rate of 8.4 percent.
Passage of a county measure in February and Sequim’s measure in August would raise sales tax rate countywide to 8.5 percent and the tax rate within the city of Sequim to 8.8 percent.
If all three measures — including an additional three-tenths of 1 percent countywide — passed, then the countywide sales tax rate would be 8.8 percent, and Sequim’s would be 9.0 percent.
That’s because Monday’s vote puts the Sequim tax first on the ballot, meaning that the first one-tenth of 1 percent of sales tax any county public-safety tax measure put on the ballot in August or November 2012 would not apply to Sequim residents, Hays said.
Jefferson County now has the highest sales tax rate on the North Olympic Peninsula at 9 percent.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
