It would appear that our local government and service agencies are not particularly adept at heeding their own recommendations to the citizenry. <\/p>\n
In another example of “a hand full of gimme and a mouth full of much obliged,” we are again asked to do more – or at least the same – with a little less by the city of Kent and the Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority. They both request tax increases.<\/p>\n
For those on limited incomes or less than adequate wages, these repeated increases can be more impactful than what local officials may realize.<\/p>\n
The city says that expanding the police force is a safety issue. I like safety, and a data mailer states that aggravated assaults and crimes per officer are on the rise. Yet I see no provision in Prop A to expand community outreach, counseling or crime intervention programs. Simply throwing more cops at these problems does not address the root causes and is not a cost-effective answer.<\/p>\n
The RFA needs to re-balance its finances.<\/p>\n
Both of these entities need to do a much better job of using existing funds more efficiently. There is only so much blood to be squeezed from the turnip for many residents.<\/p>\n
Try taxing every coal and oil train that passes through Kent. Allow legal marijuana businesses to open and contribute state tax-share money and B&O taxes. Find viable alternatives to “people” taxes.<\/p>\n
Before you vote on April 24, ask yourself one question: Are my elected officials doing an expeditious job of spending the taxes we already provide? I say no.<\/p>\n
– Perry Sobolik<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It would appear that our local government and service agencies are not particularly adept at heeding their own recommendations to the citizenry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-34150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34150"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=34150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}