Email to the Editor: Councilman Explains Opposition to Library Annexation

Dear Readers,

My name is Chance LaFleur, I am one of your new members on City Council this year. With some things I have seen going around, I feel it necessary to express my opinion regarding the matter involving the library. First, as a disclaimer, I am representing myself, no other council members, or the council as a whole. Also, as I voted on the decision when it came before the City Council, I am opposed to this annexation.

First, I think there is a misconception involving the repercussions of not annexing into KCLS. To be fair, you can’t look at KCLS as a tax increase, and a city library as “free”. One thing that I have seen that I feel/know is true, there is no on-going revenue source in the city government to pay for the library in 2013. This year was funded out of a one-time supplement from a property reserve fund. However, this does not necessarily mean that if the annexation vote fails, that the library will automatically close this coming January. The reason this is coming before voters is that there is no funding source for future library operations as of right now, this is just one possible solution to the funding. In my opinion, if this vote fails, as your elected officials it is up to the city council to derive other possible solutions. Again, just to be fair, there is no on-going revenue source to fund the library, so any solution we would bring forward would most likely need to include a tax increase of some kind.

As a point of my position, I am not for turning over control of any more city owned assets to an outside agency. I also see a possible, future tax implication for the city in reaching levy rate caps, since we as a city must live under a larger cap along with the fire district, and possibly KCLS. The concern I have would be that since the City is junior to the other agencies’ taxing authority, we may inherit future problems should the fire district raise to their statutory maximum, and if property values were to decrease further. This is a somewhat complex issue, mainly being that it is not an immediate effect, and one must try to predict what will happen in the future.

As to my plan should this annexation fail, I will move for a possible city levy increase to provide funds to support our library. What has been quoted for KCLS is 50 cents/thousand, this is also the statutory maximum that they can charge. Also, for the city to run the library at “optimum” conditions similar to KCLS, we would need 65 cents/thousand. Now, here is the optimist and pessimist in me. The pessimist side is that I would not support more than a 50 cents/thousand levy increase. I think times are hard, people are struggling, and that as a city, as I would most likely propose, we could do a 50 cent/thousand increase and “live within our means”. Again to be fair, this is not an apples to apples comparison with some service levels of KCLS, but we would keep our library in the control of the City of Enumclaw. The optimist side in me says that home values will hopefully start to go up in the next few years, possible economic improvement, and then it would be more appropriate to revisit the current 65 cents/thousand budget level, but not at this time. Also, you can’t take my position as what would “for sure” happen. As I said in my opening, I can only represent myself, and it would take a consensus of four council members to move forward on any issue, and for whom I cannot speak for.

In closing, I don’t want you to vote against the library annexation because of my comments. This is my position and everyone needs to decide for themselves. I look at this vote as a decision of whether we as a community want to annex into the King County Library System, or need to find another source of funding, to possibly present back to voters, in order to fund our library. With all the passion and spirit I have seen and heard regarding this issue, I don’t think our community as a whole would stand for the loss of our library. I may be wrong, but this is my observation. That is why I don’t see this as a “KCLS or Close” vote, I see this as decision of whether our community wants to be part of KCLS, or need to find another solution. I hope I have not confused anyone, I just wanted to express my views and observations on this subject.

Sincerely,

Chance LaFleur
Enumclaw City Council Member