Capitol Lake Deschutes Estuary project good or bad?

Editor,

The Deschutes Estuary Project is good for the state but bad for the local taxpayers of unincorporated Thurston County, the cities of Tumwater and Olympia, LOTT and the Port of Olympia. The Department of Enterprise Services is asking these local governments to sign an interlocal agreement (ILA) that financially binds the taxpayers for millions of dollars annually over 24 years. Little public outreach has occurred regarding the costs to the taxpayer.

The problem with the ILA is two-fold:

1.) The long-term funding mechanism for dredging after construction of the estuary will be paid by Washington state, Thurston County, City of Tumwater, City of Olympia, Port of Olympia and LOTT in the binding ILA at a cost of $66,374,000, which includes a 4.5% per year

escalation rate. Under the ILA, each was assigned a percentage to pay based on their benefit: Olympia 23.1% or $11,508,000 and the others 15.4% or $7,673,000 through 2050. The average citizen knows little about how much of their tax dollars are going to be diverted to this effort. Each jurisdiction will extract funds from different sources within their organizations. Some taxpayers would be double or triple taxed (e.g., everyone pays Port of Olympia taxes; we all live in Thurston County or one of the cities; and some are LOTT fee payers).

2.) Particularly disturbing about this ILA and the costs being assigned to local government entities is that the areas to be dredged in Budd Inlet provides access to private marinas, yacht clubs and the one public marina owned by the City of Olympia. The taxpayers should not be paying these additional taxes to essentially reduce costs to private marinas/yacht clubs to access their docking sites.

Tell your local jurisdictions not to sign this ILA!

Barry Halverson

Yelm