Dori: LID sets dangerous precedent for entire region

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan wants to move ahead with a massive $160 million tax to help remake the Seattle waterfront. She just announced that she wants the people who own property around the waterfront to pay what is called a LID — a local improvement district.

The theory is that these people will benefit from getting a nice new park. The fact of the matter is, everybody will benefit if it’s a nice park. But it will probably not be a nice park. It will probably be filled with heroin addicts and people sleeping everywhere, like the Victor Steinbrueck Park next to Pike Place Market.

Here’s the danger of this — and this is really unprecedented — if you live near Lower Queen Anne, for example, they could decide to make a promenade for the rebuilt Seattle Coliseum and make a LID that hits only you. If they get this pushed through, they’re not going to stop with downtown Seattle — they’re going to try to do this to every neighborhood in the state.

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

I know people who bought downtown condos at a price they could afford back in the 1980s, long before prices skyrocketed. Now they’re retired on a fixed income, and Jenny Durkan wants them to write a lump sum of $5,000 based on the current valuation.

Hey Seattle, you could do a few other things instead of this LID. You could get the businesses that are going to prosper the most from improving the waterfront, and say, “Hey, if you want this, you’re going to have to cough it up.” The Seattle Aquarium is trying to raise millions of dollars for their new shark tank. They can kick in a few bucks.

But my point is, this is the camel’s nose. If they’re successful with this, our spendthrift government leaders are going to try to charge everybody in the state for every single improvement to their neighborhoods. It’s a very dangerous path that we’re on here.

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