Proposition 1: Increased community safety tax for Spokane on November ballot

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Voters will decide in November whether or not to increase the city of Spokane's sales and use tax for community safety.

The increase to the tax would be by one-tenth of a percent and would cost taxpayers about $1 for every $1,000 spent.

Necessities such as food, prescriptions and rent would be excluded.

If approved, the tax is estimated to generate $7.7 million a year. 15% of that would go to Spokane County, and the remainder, about $6.5 million, would go toward safety efforts in the City of Spokane.

"The community safety proposal is really based on our conversations with community, both downtown and neighborhoods, about improvements they want to see in community safety," said Mayor Lisa Brown.

The city said the money would go toward new equipment for the fire department and to reinstate the fire academy, as well as toward bringing back SPD's Traffic Safety Unit and relaunching the city's Neighborhood Resource Officer Program.

"Having a neighborhood resource officer on the ground, speaking to businesses, speaking to the neighborhood association, is really important for coordination, and really making sure that each neighborhood has that response that is specific to them, and officers that know their neighborhoods and can be there when they're needed," said Mayor Brown.

Without the tax increase, Mayor Brown said the city could face overtime expenses and other problems.

"It's going to be challenging to make investments that we know people want. We are concerned about not having a fire academy that could lead to shortages in personnel or paying a lot of overtime," she said.

Spokane City Councilmember Michael Cathcart is against the proposition.

He said the language is too vague about how the money can be spent and is concerned there is no stated end-date for the tax.

"Had that been, as I had advocated for, put into the measure that protection would be everlasting for those 10 years, that would make sure that that council would have to come back to the voters to extend it for another 10 years, which gives the voters, at that moment in time, an opportunity to hold them accountable for bad decisions that have been made," said Cathcart.

On October 7 the city will propose an ordinance to the Public Safety Committee to have the proposed tax expire in 10 years.

Cathcart said because this isn't directly written in the proposition itself, another city council or mayor could repeal this ordinance. That's where his worries are stemmed from.

For more information on the community safety proposal, visit spokanecity.org .

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