On a split vote late Tuesday night, the Whatcom County Council agreed to ask a Superior Court judge to decide whether a citizen initiative to repeal the countywide child care tax can appear on the Nov. 5 election ballot.
Petitions seeking to overturn the tax, which passed by 20 votes in 2022 , were filed with the Whatcom County Auditor’s Office on June 3, and they had enough signatures to qualify for the ballot as an initiative.
Tuesday’s vote to seek a judicial opinion was 4-2, with councilmembers Ben Elenbaas and Mark Stremler opposed. Councilman Tyler Byrd abstained.
Elenbaas and Stremler represent districts that include rural Whatcom County north of Bellingham and the cities of Ferndale, Blaine and Lynden.
“I feel like democracy is under attack here. What’s it going to cost us to put this on the ballot? Nothing. In fact, that is our charge. I just think we’re way out of line here,” Elenbaas said Tuesday during discussion on the issue.
County Council members have debated the topic in recent committee meetings, where Councilman Todd Donovan said the ballot measure should have been filed as a referendum. That would have required a larger number of petition signatures and put time constraints on its filing.
By definition, an initiative asks voters to make a new law, while a referendum is used to repeal an existing law.
“Democracy means playing by the rules. I think these are clear-cut in the charter. Maybe a court will (disagree),” Donovan said.
Donovan, who represents the northern part of Bellingham, is a political science professor at Western Washington University whose research focuses on political behavior, direct democracy and elections, among other topics.
George Roche, the lawyer from the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office who advises the County Council on legal issues, has told the council that nearly all citizen ballot measures ultimately wind up in court.
Because the initiative was certified by Whatcom County Auditor Stacy Henthorn, the County Council is required under the county charter to either put the measure on the ballot, present a competing measure or enact it into law.
Several Whatcom County residents addressed the proposal to seek a court ruling during the open pubic comment part of Tuesday night’s meeting.
In addition, the League of Women Voters of Bellingham/Whatcom County sent a letter of support. Political action committee Washingtonians for a Sound Economy asked the County Council to let the voters decide if they want to keep paying the tax.
“We find it ironic that the county is complaining about the impacts of the initiative to its budget and deals with it by authorizing expensive litigation by the county attorney,” the PAC’s Ashley Butenschoen said in a statement.
Washingtonians for a Sound Economy funded the signature drive to repeal the tax, raising $62,500 , according to the state Public Disclosure Commission .
Critics of the repeal say that the PAC falsely claimed that it will lower property taxes by 25% and didn’t mention the measure’s full intent.
“We believe that signatures on the propositions were collected with misleading information. People were led to believe that their property taxes would go down 25%. That is not true. My personal property tax would go down about 3%,” Eileen McCracken, president of the League of Women Voters of Bellingham/Whatcom County, said in a letter that was included on the County Council agenda.
Called the Healthy Children’s Fund , the tax charges property owners 19 cents for every $1,000 of assessed valuation, raising an estimated $10 million annually. That means that the owner of a home assessed at $500,000 is paying $95 a year over the 10-year life of the tax levy.
The measure received broad support among employers in Whatcom County, who said that the high cost of child care is a weight on the local economy.
Spending includes $7 million every year on direct child care programs, according the the Whatcom County Department of Health and Community Services.
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