We adamantly oppose the funding method for the ARC in Kirkland Proposition 1, for the reasons shown here: www.no-kard.org, and in many letters that have appeared recently in KirklandViews.com and the Kirkland Reporter.

We further believe that the proposed ARC, however funded, is not a cost-effective answer to Kirkland’s need for a swimming and recreation facility. Instead, partnering with the YMCA’s 100-plus years of expertise in building such magnificent facilities would be a much lower-cost solution, as documented in detail in this blog and in several recent letters to the above-mentioned Kirkland media.

Basically, Prop 1 would be future “taxation without accountable representation”. Furthermore, in the just-mailed “make-up” voters’-pamphlet addendum, the following phrase in the “Rebuttal of Statement Against: “requiring… voter approval of any other major expenditures” is absolutely false: There will never be any voter recourse on anything this taxing district decides to do. All decisions will be made by the City Council and a non-accountable, non-refutable taxing-district board.

Tt’s very suspicious that the City Council has proposed this ballot measure in a form that requires only 50 percent approval by voters, whereas a much more responsible and constrained bond measure would require 60 percent approval.

If passed, you’ll have no recourse against a permanent, non-revocable taxing district for up to 75 cents per $1,000 of your assessed valuation, $375 on a $500,000 home, every year forever.

We just looked at our 2015 property tax bill and the flyer (attached) that came with it, explaining where the taxes go. The “cities” allocation is 17.09 percent of the total bill, and that excludes schools, fire protection, hospitals, parks and libraries, which are separately allocated. A simple calculation shows us that if the 75 cents per $1,000 were added to our (and every other Kirkland resident’s) tax bill, the city’s portion would increase by a whopping 42.7 percent. No wonder the City Council is unanimous in pushing this, unlike a similarly unanimous group of non-government city leaders who oppose it, in the most recent Kirkland Reporter and here.

We urge you to vote no on the proposal, and if possible, donate to the opposition campaign as we have, using the link www.no-kard.org shown below.

Thank you for your consideration,

Beth and John McCaslin, Kirkland