Proposals to enact a retail sales tax in the city limits of Battle Ground for road maintenance and projects didn’t receive enough support from city councilors, though potential votes on ballot measures in November or February aren’t completely out of the picture.
During its June 21 meeting, the council voted down three motions regarding a sales tax increase for the city’s transportation benefit district. Since April, the council has discussed either enacting a .1% increase on its own, or placing an increase of up to .3% in front of voters.
If approved, a tax is estimated to provide $800,000 of revenue for the transportation benefit district per .1% increase. The tax discussion comes as the city looks at ways it can fund road maintenance to keep or exceed current conditions.
At the June 21 meeting, staff recommended a .2% tax, which would provide the city with sustainable funding that would prevent the city’s road conditions from falling further behind on ratings.
Councilor Shane Bowman compared the tax to a recycling agreement that maintains weekly service with a $2-per-month increase, which the city approved right before the sales tax discussion. It would require $24,000 in gross retail purchases from a household to reach the level of a .1% increase.
“I haven’t had one neighbor complain to me about garbage. I haven’t had one neighbor complain to me about water or sewer. I’ve had a lot of people complain to me about roads,” Bowman said.
He also referenced a previous meeting where the council voted against supporting a countywide public safety sales tax measure. Councilors argued the county is attempting to make up for it’s own poor financing practices by putting some of the burden on cities.
“This 100% goes to our community,” Bowman said about the transportation sales tax.
Mayor Philip Johnson noted the tax would be paid by people who patronize businesses within the city limits, and wouldn’t solely impact the residents who live in Battle Ground.
“It’s not just about the 21-22,000 of us that live in the city, it’s the other (60,000) that come visit us,” Johnson said.
Johnson reiterated a stance he took in previous meetings. He doesn’t want to be a councilmember who pushes off road upkeep that future councils will have to address.
Bowman agreed that improving the roads is a chief concern for the city.
“You will not have economic development if you have crappy roads,” Bowman said. “If you don’t fix what you have, no one wants to do business with you.”
Deputy Mayor Cherish DesRochers said from her understanding the .1% tax council could enact on its own would be enough to improve the city’s roads.
“My concern is if we push the .1% and then we put it out to vote (later), people are going to be upset that we raised their taxes anyways, so they may not support it,” DesRochers said.
A majority of the council voted against taking a “councilmatic” .1% sales tax increase, as well as a .2% increase on either the November or February ballot.
Councilor Adrian Cortes pushed back on the decision to leave it up to voters, in part because of the cost involved with running a special election. Those who were against putting the vote on the November or February ballot voiced concerns on whether that allowed the council enough time to place the groundwork for the ballot measure to successfully pass.
Cortes said the council doesn’t go to a vote of the people on all of its decisions, like when it approves the city’s annual budget.
“They voted us into office to make these hard decisions,” Cortes said.
Cortes also took another shot at the county’s sales tax, which he said is evidence of “extraordinarily sloppy leadership” by the Clark County Council.
“It would make me feel better knowing that this money is staying in our community, it’s not going out to the county to fund whatever their pet projects are,” Cortes said.
Cortes said any sales tax measure would need to be as successful as the city’s 2020 annexation into Clark County Fire District 3. Though the annexation increased property taxes on those in the city, the additional funding was used for a variety of city services, which included roads.
“That was truly an initiative where we communicated well with voters and we followed through on every single thing we said we were going to do with that extra revenue,” Cortes said.
Though the council voted down potential sales tax measures, they may revisit the issue next month. After an inquiry from a few councilors about bringing the issue back, Battle Ground City Manager Erin Erdman said anyone from the “prevailing side” of the options considered — in this case those who voted the options down — can move to reconsider it at the council’s July 5 meeting.
