Don’t let Seattle’s Tim Eyman decide how Pasco pays for its roads | Editorial

Tim Eyman is welcome to visit the Tri-Cities and sample some wine or paddle the spectacular Hanford Reach in the fall. Recreate here, please. But the anti-tax crusader drove over the Cascades this week to bully the Pasco City Council as it considers how to better fund local roads. He should have stayed home.

The Pasco council is trying to balance fiscal accountability with investments in public infrastructure as it discusses a tax hike for roads. The mechanism is a special taxing jurisdiction called a “transportation benefit district.” Such districts are fairly common, used by 124 municipalities in Washington, including Kennewick, Richland, Prosser and Walla Walla.

Pasco could impose a new car tab fee of $20 or a new sales tax of up to 0.1%. It does not have many good options to pay for costly road upkeep. The city is already dipping into reserves to pay for operations, and its gas tax revenue is declining.

The timing isn’t great. A local tax hike to pay for transportation would come on top of a new 6-cent jump in gas taxes imposed by the Legislature. Most of that statewide tax increase is earmarked for new megaprojects and maintaining existing highways, not funding local needs.

Pasco Mayor David Milne acknowledged the tension at the Sept. 15 council meeting. “Every member here does not like new taxes. We also don’t like roads with potholes in them either,” he said.

And then Eyman took the microphone at the meeting, delivering his typical bombast.

He wore a bright orange T-shirt reminding everyone of his attempts to cap car tabs at $30. He convinced voters to pass two initiatives to do so. The state Supreme Court ruled that both were unconstitutional.

He huffed that the council’s timing of public comments left him sitting in the audience for 55 minutes. He compared the Pasco council to the Seattle City Council for a lack of transparency. And he accused Pasco’s leaders of holding a “secret meeting” to stifle public input on the proposed tax.

Only the 55-minute delay was true, but the council had to hold a special meeting to fill a vacancy before it could get onto the regular business. Boohoo for Eyman having to wait. The rest was wrong.

Mayor Milne and Mayor Pro-Tem Charles Grimm indignantly shot back at Eyman for his false claims. There were no secret meetings; all had been advertised and broadcast. Public comment was welcomed and solicited. And the council isn’t even going to vote on the proposed tax until early November at the earliest.

There’s no conspiracy or effort to hide anything. The council welcomes public input as it wrestles with a difficult issue. After the council decides, it will have to defend its decision before voters.

Speaking with the Tri-City Herald’s Larissa Babiak last week, Eyman lobbed another argument against Pasco’s tax. He said it would create a “domino effect,” leading other cities to tax for roads. A logician might instead call that a slippery slope fallacy. Pasco’s sincere need to maintain pavement and streetlights is a local decision with accountability at the ballot box.

Besides, transportation benefit districts already exist in the Tri-Cities. For example, Richland’s $20 car tab fee helped pay off bonds issued to build the Duportail Bridge, which opened in 2020.

What Eyman didn’t address was Pasco’s need for good roads and how to pay for them. When activists try to shift the discussion from substance to process, they engage in rhetorical sleight of hand. They distract the audience from the real issue. Look here, not there.

The residents of Pasco know the potholes and problem intersections that need to be addressed. An out-of-towner like Eyman has no idea. He is not interested in an adult conversation about public policy and Pasco’s transportation needs.

The Pasco City Council did the right thing by giving him a chance to speak. What he had to say, however, wasn’t worth listening to.