If approved, Seattle property owners to pay for $930M transportation levy
Jun 23, 2015, 4:15 PM | Updated: Jun 24, 2015, 2:06 pm
Seattle property owners will foot the bill if voters approve the mayor's $930 million transportation levy in November. (MyNorthwest file)
(MyNorthwest file)
Seattle property owners will foot the bill if voters approve the mayor’s $930 million transportation levy in November.
City Council members rejected, 7-2, Nick Licata’s proposal to cut the cost to $600 million by charging a parking tax and a hourly employee tax.
“If we were able to go with a commercial parking tax and an employee hourly tax, we estimate that it would raise $230 million and it would get us to $830 million. Shy, although there are the transportation impact fees that we would also be visiting.”
Council members argued Tuesday that the proposal would push the burden to businesses.
Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who sided with Licata, said she’s not surprised that the downtown association and chamber of commerce don’t support the proposal.
“Just to remind everybody that we did have this in the city and it was repealed in the name of the recession,” Sawant said. “Well, now the city’s GDP grew, it has recovered. Business are doing well, but most working people are not. It is the right time to carry out whatever measures we can to make taxes more progressive in Seattle.”
The Move Seattle levy would replace the “Bridging the Gap” levy that expires at the end of 2015. The new levy would cost a median Seattle household, valued at $450,000, about $275 per year; the expiring levy costs the same household about $130 per year.
The Seattle Times reports Mayor Ed Murray and councilmember Tom Rasmussen have argued the city may need the taxes later to bond big projects.
Licata said that he doesn’t understand the argument against a parking tax.
“The argument against using commercial parking tax and the negative impact it may have … is that we’ll need it for something else,” he said. “It’s either bad or good. If it’s bad, it’s going to bad later on as well.”
Sawant said she’s just tired of hearing about it being the wrong time for progressive taxes in the city.
“When would the right time happen? What stars have to align before council members will take the correct position?”
