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CONTACT THE ENTERPRISE Jocelyn Robinson, News editor jrobinson@heraldnet.com

City backs off levy

But a plastic bag ban passes

By Russ Doubleday
Enterprise reporter

A week after deciding to put a $3.75 million levy on the November ballot to fund parks and public safety, the Edmonds City Council voted Tuesday to postpone the tax request until 2010.

The Council voted 4-2 in favor of postponing the levy request. Councilors Ron Wambolt, Michael Plunkett, Strom Peterson and Peggy Pritchard Olson voted in favor of suspending the levy while councilmen David Orvis and Steve Bernheim voted to keep the levy on the ballot. Council President D.J. Wilson was away in Washington, D.C.

The decision reverses a 4-3 vote one week earlier on July 21 that would have placed a request on the ballot. The council earlier, on June 23, had voted unanimously to bring some kind of request to voters in November.

Wambolt proposed that the levy be delayed for three reasons. The levy committee felt that some departments were getting more money than they needed, he said. Activist Tim Eyman’s effort to limit tax hikes, Initiative 1033, if passed in November could negate the Edmonds request. And Wambolt said now was not the right time to ask voters for more money.

After the vote, Mayor Gary Haakenson said he was pleased with the delay. He felt the levy would have failed on the ballot in its current form. Yost Pool and the Senior Center are funded through 2010, so there won’t be a scramble to find funds at the beginning of next year.

The Council came to the conclusion that a levy was certainly needed in the future, but it could survive without cutting any major programs in the foreseeable future.

Bernheim said he would have liked to ask for the levy this year’s ballot. He felt that the Eyman initiative was not a reason to withhold the levy. If the levy didn’t pass, he said, the city would then have time to regroup and present a better proposal later.

The cost to put the levy on the ballot is $80,000.

Meanwhile, the Council also passed an ordinance for ending the use of plastic bags at retail stores, restaurants and other food establishments. The ordinance was passed 5-1, with Wambolt dissenting.

Peterson led the movement to ban the use of plastic bags.

“The goal is to get people using recyclable shopping bags,” he said.

Plastic bags are bad for the environment and this law will help improve the health of Puget Sound and the city, Peterson added. Businesses won’t have to buy plastic bags in the future, so it will save them money down the line as well.

Wambolt voted against the ordinance because he felt that citizens are already recycling and bringing reusable bags to grocery stores.

“This is not appropriate for city government to get into,” Wambolt said.

A handful of people who spoke during a public comment period expressed their support for the bag ban, with one person speaking against the ordinance.

A start date for the ban has not been set.