Dori: LID tax passage marks beginning of disturbing trend

As we predicted months ago, the Seattle City Council voted to pass the wealth transfer tax on the Seattle waterfront for its new waterfront improvement project. They call it a Local Improvement District, or LID.

This isn’t an income tax; it’s based on the value of your property, whether a condo or commercial building. If you’re a commercial building owner, you can pass the cost on to your renters.

For the condo owners, it’s not as easy. And trust me, they are not all wealthy. I know a couple in their 60s who bought their condo near Harbor Steps about 30 years ago. It was not an extravagant purchase at the time; it was not an upscale neighborhood back then. There are a lot of similar people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s in that area who cannot afford to pay this massive new tax. These are people who are already soaked with state and local taxes.

RELATED: Downtown condo owner calls proposed tax a ‘perversion’ of LID

Now Jenny Durkan and the Seattle City Council said, “You have to write us a check for thousands of dollars so you can pay to improve the waterfront.”

Councilmember Rob Johnson, as I told you, has announced he won’t run for re-election and has gotten a job with the new NHL team coming to Seattle. Supposedly, his job is to work on transportation and traffic around Seattle Center for people attending hockey games there. That’s their stated reasoning for hiring him. But I have sources who tell me what’s really going on.

The city gerrymandered these boundaries for this waterfront LID, leaving out a couple of blocks of commercial buildings near Denny Way. Why would they take those buildings out of the mix? Because they need those properties when they do their next LID, which will hit the people of Lower Queen Anne. Pretty soon, the city will be asking those people for thousands of dollars each.

Rob Johnson was not hired by the NHL team to just do transportation; he was hired to try to push forward the next LID.

Government leaders are going to roll this type of tax throughout the city, and from there, throughout the region. First I predict will be the Ballard LID to improve Market Street. Even if you live outside the city, you’re not safe — you’d better be very wary of this. Every time government sees an idea to get thousands of your dollars, make no mistake, they’ll pursue it.

And by the way, the city lied to those condo owners on the waterfront about how much it would cost them. The original figure Jenny Durkan tossed out was bogus. Now people are starting to run the numbers and are finding out it’s a lot more.

Councilmember Johnson stated at the council meeting that this would be a way to take the waterfront away from the cars and give it back to the people.

Oh yeah? How fast do you think the drug vagrants will be setting up tents down on the waterfront? How much do you think they are going to immediately destroy the beautification projects there that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions, since Seattle continues to attract drug addicts from around the nation to our region?

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