Legislative fix should be for regional board, not city

Recently, the Tri-City Herald Editorial Board expressed support for Pasco’s desire to change state law so the Pasco Public Facilities District could lawfully seek voter approval to increase the sales tax rate to pay for an aquatics center in Pasco. Is this a good idea?

Let’s pose the question differently. If one assumes there is a need for a quality performing arts facility in the Tri-Cities, would it be more likely to be supported if it was funded by a regional sales tax, or by a sales tax levied in just one city? If your answer is that it would be more likely to be supported if it was regionally funded, then you should have concern with the proposal by the city of Pasco. Why, because whatever sales tax is levied by the Pasco Public Facilities District diminishes the amount of sales tax that can be levied by the regional PFD, and therefore would preclude funding for a performing arts facility built anytime soon.

The city of Pasco says that property tax should be reserved for the Pasco School District, yet several years ago, they tried getting a property tax measure passed to build a swimming pool. Indeed, every city and county in the state has to use property tax if they want to build capital projects. Why should Pasco be any different?

All the cities in the region could use more municipal pool space, particularly indoor facilities. My assertion is that a Public Facilities District is not the mechanism by which to get these facilities. An aquatics center is a recreational facility, as such, if the cities don’t want to build them, then we should use what is allowed by existing state law to finance them. Metropolitan park districts can do aquatics facilities and a regional metropolitan park district can do aquatics facilities in all four cities in the region. The Public Facilities Districts should build and operate what was intended in the original law — regional centers such as a performing arts facility.

To date, the regional PFD has been hung up on what it should do. I believe what the regional PFD ought to do is to expand the convention center in Kennewick, make the Reach museum financially solvent and be positioned to expand it sometime in the future, and build and operate a performing arts facility in Pasco.

Unfortunately, the Tri-cities Regional Public Facilities District (TCRPFD) has a legal requirement that makes it very difficult for the TCRPFD to execute such a comprehensive plan. RCW 35.57.020(1)(b)(ii) states in part that the TCRPFD “must obtain voter approval to fund each recreational facility or regional center.” This means projects can’t be bundled. Therefore, with each vote on each project, the questions in every voter’s mind will be “what’s in it for my city? Why should I allow the sales tax to be raised in my city if the project being voted upon will be in another city?” Inevitably, as seen with the vote on the aquatics center project sponsored by the TCRPFD several years ago, it passed where the facility was going, but failed elsewhere.

For the TCRPFD to be able to serve the regional community, it must be able to bundle projects. It needs to be able to get voter approved of a comprehensive plan. This is the area the state Legislature needs to address, not expanding the authority of the Pasco PFD and other city PFDs in the state to allow them to do recreational facilities.

This story was originally published January 22, 2017 at 4:23 AM with the headline "Legislative fix should be for regional board, not city."