We will be voting on a proposition where the (King County) Council has attached a road-maintenance tax to a Metro transportation tax that provides an estimated $3 million for street repairs to the city of Kent. The Kent City Council has been trying, over and over, to attach a tax on the citizens/homeowners in Kent for road work that’s needed.
The business and occupation (B&O) tax is the appropriate venue to raise money for road/street repair because it is the businesses in Kent whose 16-, 18-wheelers are responsible for the hideous condition of our streets.
Kent is the fourth largest small-industrial complex in the United States, and the businesses in Kent use heavy trailer trucks to import and/or distribute their goods. The state of the roads is not the responsibility of the passenger-car owners in Kent; it’s the responsibility of the business community to repair what they destroy.
I urge Kent voters to vote no on the latest attempt to burden us with taxation for road improvements. Hopefully the council will stop attaching road-improvement taxation to every other taxation issue – whether its parks or transportation. We are not going to tax ourselves when we are not the source of the problem. Instead, increase the B&O tax and eliminate some of the loopholes and exemptions.
The B&O tax is the proper venue for funds for roads. Lay the bill at the feet of those responsible.
– Sandra Gill
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