Clyde Hill News: Administration supports raising property tax limit
Also: License plate readers go live; city “retreat” bill starts at $8K
Clyde Hill’s administration “signed a letter of support” for a state senate bill that would allow Clyde Hill and other cities to raise property taxes by more than the current 1% per year limit, according to a document posted on the city’s website Friday (link).
The administration also executed an agreement for $8,450 (“plus local travel mileage and materials reimbursement”) for “retreat facilitation services.” City staff notes that it is still developing a draft meeting agenda, and
City Council will have an opportunity to review the draft Agenda and provide feedback at their February meeting before it is finalized.
More details on these items, and an update about license plate readers in Clyde Hill, below. But first — deer in Clyde Hill. Long-time resident Susan Baldwin writes that her neighbor Garrett LaComa sent her this photo of several deer at the corner of 24th and 92nd early this morning.
Disclaimer: while I am a councilmember on the Clyde Hill City Council, I write this newsletter in my capacity as an individual resident. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the position of the city. City information and references here are from public sources. I welcome email responses — and if the topic is about city business I will respond from my city email account.
Enabling bigger property tax hikes
Briefly:
State law imposes a 1% limit on annual property tax increases by Washington cities. State lawmakers are considering raising this limit (link).
Clyde Hill’s administration signed on to a coalition lobbying effort against this “arbitrary property tax cap” (see “Coalition forms to support revising the local property tax cap,” link).
There has been no public discussion of this position. The first public communication of this support was an item under “Contracts and Letters Administratively Approved/Signed” in a report posted on the city’s website Friday. There’s been no vote by the city council about supporting this new state law.
Interpreting the endorsement
For context, Clyde Hill has operated with a budget deficit for the last four years (link). Discussions about how to “improve long-term financial sustainability” or how to “make adjustments to revenue and expense to correct our historical imbalance” (“July 2023 Budget Advisory Committee,” link, slide 20) did not, under the previous administration, turn into any specific plan.
One way to interpret this endorsement is as a statement from city staff that the only way to solve Clyde Hill’s ongoing budget deficits is a big property tax hike.
Also: it’s not clear how residents were supposed to find out, make sense of, or weigh in on this significant issue.
Retreat Planning
City staff moved ahead with ~$8,000 of expenditure on a planning retreat for staff, mayor, and city council, according to another item under “Contracts and Letters Administratively Approved/Signed.”
On the one hand, meetings to plan or study a topic are a standard practice and expected. For example, Medina appears to have a regular annual planning retreat (link). Clyde Hill has held several public “study sessions” over the years to make progress on specific issues, like traffic, outside of its regular council meetings.
On the other hand, there’s been no clear statement of the goal or problem to be solved here. The city staff’s memo notes that it is still developing a draft meeting agenda. Several residents have expressed their surprise and displeasure about the cost of a meeting.
Effective outsourcing
Stepping back, there’s a strong parallel here with the administration’s approach to the Comprehensive Plan.
For a contractor to be effective, there’s a required baseline of communication, expectation setting, and oversight. Spending money on a contractor when there’s a lack of in-house expertise or time is a standard practice. Individuals, companies, and cities do it all the time. Without upfront planning and ongoing follow up — typically part of that standard practice — it’s unlikely to work out well.
For context, the city hired a contractor to help develop the city’s state-mandated Comprehensive Plan. The specific plan, process, deliverables, and timelines were never really clear. Over a year into the project, then-Mayor Klaas announced “We’re going to have an immediate task force of leadership on this to regroup” (link). To help manage the contractor, the administration hired a former employee of the contractor as a part-time city employee. (For more details, see “Two years, $200K, and no clear plan,” link).
According to the document on the city’s website, the retreat appears to be scheduled for March 1st. More on this topic and the agenda as it becomes public.
License plate readers go live
License plate readers are live at eight locations around the periphery of Clyde Hill, according to an undated update from the city (link). “Police officers from Clyde Hill and Medina [can] access Flock system hits across the four Points Communities:”
“This technology will function as an early warning system for law enforcement to solve crime and help keep the Clyde Hill community safe. Flock hits in the region and across the country have aided in solving cases of stolen vehicles, stolen license plates, burglaries, assaults, and missing persons.”
The cameras “capture the rear license plates of vehicles leaving or entering the city, immediately notifying law enforcement if that vehicle has been reported stolen or connected to a recent crime.”
The city’s communication notes that
“Flock Safety cameras only capture information pertaining to a vehicle’s license plate, model and color. The cameras do not capture any information regarding the vehicle driver or occupants, and the Flock system is not used for immigration or traffic enforcement.”
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Dean Hachamovitch