The Clark County Board of Councilors voted 2-1 last Wednesday to consider the preliminary steps of a plan that could eventually expand C-TRAN’s service boundaries to cover all Clark County residents.
The council cannot directly change C-TRAN’s boundaries alone; the resolution would call a conference of the county’s incorporated bodies to consider changing the boundaries. Each councilor and a representative of each of the seven cities would have a vote in the final outcome.
The Sept. 2 Board Time meeting vote means the resolution to call the conference will be placed on the agenda for consideration during Tuesday’s regular council meeting.
Proponents of the plan argue it is unfair that rural residents are currently forced to pay a sales tax which funds C-TRAN on purchases they make in the urban areas despite having no access to its services and no voice in its operations.
“Under the growth management act, I can’t have a super store out in the rural area because that’s what the growth management act does,” Councilor Tom Mielke said, pointing out that rural residents have no choice but to go to town to purchase what they need.
“The funding for C-Tran is through the sales tax … I have to pay the tax when I come to the incorporated areas to purchase, but I don’t get to vote. So it’s like taxation without representation,” he said.
Councilor Jeanne Stewart cast the dissenting vote in the decision, saying there hadn’t been enough time to review the information and study the possible outcomes of such a plan.
“I’m not just thinking about this resolution; I’m thinking about where this resolution will lead us,” Stewart said. “What inevitable road does this take us down?"
The councilors accused the creators of C-TRAN’s current boundaries of cutting certain residents out of the service area to deny them a vote in the agency’s operations for fear they would spoil future plans.
“They gerrymandered the lines to get favorable votes, and yet, in the law it says they are supposed to follow the school district boundaries,” Mielke said. “So they violated that all to pieces.”
Councilor Madore argued C-TRAN was “highly successful” for 25 years in operation with no gaps in service in the county between 1980 and 2005. He took a different stance for moving the plan forward quickly, expressing concern for residents he felt had been denied service unfairly.
“I’m aware there are citizens that are walking who are handicapped, who used to be serviced by the bus and they are walking long distances because they no longer have bus service,” he said. “This is a real need, there are real citizens out there that are no longer being served and that is the primary reason why C-TRAN was created in the first place.”
Stewart warned rushing into the proposal would likely cause “turmoil” in the community.
“Sometimes turmoil is just what you do, it’s like going to war,” she said. “You just have to do it, and you stay with it. I’m not sure that there aren’t other ways to do this. I’m not saying that there are; I’m saying ‘is it worth going to war.’”
If the resolution moves forward Tuesday, the meeting will be tentatively scheduled for 5:30 p.m., Oct. 25, at the Vancouver Main Library.
