LATEST ALERT!! The Fight Is not over!
6582 and 2751 Still Alive taking away our right to vote on car tab increases! We really need your help – just a few calls will really make a difference!! See below for a few instructions with links for easy calling emailing.
Your help it REALLY NEEDED and will make the difference!
Substitute versions of these two bills are still alive still allowing our city council to raise our car tabs by another 20 without a vote and your calls and emails would Really really help. Special thanks to those of you who’ve already started helping with this especially Mariana and Ray but I think we ALL need to be doing this…….
Best way I think to do this is first email our letter again attached below, then a follow up call to their staff (if not legislator especially if you know ‘em), make sure they got your email and that it will go to their boss, and then emphasize why it needs to be opposed. Please help…we can stop this with your help. Call ‘em now and even on Sat they’re usually in……. and/or early next week. They are still alive! We gotta kill ‘em
More details and links on who specifically we need to call
You can access the phone and email of the Transportation Committee members of both house and senate by going here to these sites and for members of Rules Committees They all have received copies of our letter which would be good to refer to – to make sure they got it and have read it. I’ve attached for your convenience another copy of it to forward to them just before you call them to make it easier for them to refer to it when you call them. They’re out of committee now and on to Rules where they may or may not be pulled for a floor vote. If they get that far, then bills approved on the floor must go to the other chamber (back to the Transportation Committees). What’d be best for now probably would be to some names on Rules in both chambers including the chairs and vice chairs especially and the same for Rules. Call Frank Chopp’s office too and any other seattle legislators you may be able to influence…..
Here are the sites with email and phone numbers for members – start with key members of rules including those you may know:
House:
http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Committees/TR/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx
http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Committees/RUL/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx
Senate
http://www.leg.wa.gov/Senate/Committees/TRAN/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx
http://www.leg.wa.gov/Senate/Committees/RULE/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx
if you want to read the bills still alive, go to Washington State Legislature’s Bill site and type in the bill numbers 6582 and 2751
and here’s a copy of our letter you could cut and paste
An Open Letter to Washington State House and Senate Members
Please vote NO on provisions of all bills taking away our right to vote on car tab increases
(SB 6582 & 6455, HB 2751 & 2660)
From: “Citizens Against Raising Car Tabs” & co-signed by the following supporters contact: 206-632-0668 or this emailaddress
John V. Fox * David Bloom * Don Hopps * Janine Blaeloch * Emory Bundy * Ted Van Dyk * Ben Wojcik * Jef Jaisun * Faye Garneau * Chas Talbot * Al Runte * Harriet Walden * Alice Woldt * Brad Cummings * Rusty Williams * Irene Wall * Janet Way * Ray Akers * Carolyn Forrester * Joe Martin * Jayne Dehaan * Grover Haynes * Greg Buck * Stephen Lamphear * Rick Barrett * Chris Leman * Dennis Saxman * Cheryl Jones * Elizabeth Campbell * Carla Miller * Phil Bereano * Tim Baker * Kevin McCarthy * Scott McClay * Rebecca Em Campbell * Glenn Avery * Gene Hoglund * Paul Fellows * Faith Fogarty * Rachel Hawkridge * Gene Hawkridge * Richard Ranhofer * Dolores Ranhofer * Kathyryn K. Trigg * Mary L. Klein * Dorothy Lengyel * Tom Lattimore * A.D. “Skip” Knox * Mariana Quarnstrom * Ann Pinsky * Peter Acker * Sue Acker * Richard B. Fairchild * Rose Alfred * Steve Alfred * Sam Star * Patricia Paschal * Mathew Fox * Vincent Furfaro * Loretta L. Sutherland * Ronni Gilboa * Thalia Syracopoulos * Nancy Reithaar * Andrew MacDonald * Mary Lou Barian * Harvey Friedman * David C. Yao * Bette J. Reed * Geof Logan * Gary Clark * Lowell D. Walton * Marsha Shaiman * Stephen R. Horswill * Karen Tofte * Roland Kumasaka
Dear Senators and House Members,
Re: SB 6582, SB 6455, HB 2751, HB 2660 – Please vote NO on car tab increases without a public vote
We strenuously object to changes in the current “Transit Benefit District” law that would raise from $20 to $40 the amount cities may charge in increased car tab fees without a public vote! We urge you to VOTE NO on SB 6582, SB 6455, HB 2751, and HB 2660 for this reason.
“Citizens Against Raising Car Tabs” (http://citizensagainstraisingcartabs.com/) is a broad coalition of residents and small businesses that successfully turned back an effort by Seattle officials last fall to secure voter approval of a raise in our city’s car tabs by $60. Last November Seattle voters overwhelmingly (107,000 of them) said NO to that car tab increase. Now we understand SB 6582, SB 6455, HB 2751, and HB 2660 would increase by another $20 the amount our city officials could raise our car tabs WITHOUT A PUBLIC VOTE. We see this as a clear attempt by City of Seattle’s lobbyists to circumvent the will of voters.
Last Fall, our city proposed raising our car tabs by 60$ for ten years for the purposes of funding extension of Paul Allen’s streetcar and other non-essentials. Only 30% of monies raised from this were earmarked to address over a 800 million dollar backlog of road needs and none was earmarked to address our city’s bridge needs even though over 60% of our city’s bridges are rated in “poor” condition. A small business dependent on van deliveries or a person driving a 30 year-old Ford pay as much in these flat fees per car or van as someone driving a Lexus. The only way we could address the unfairness of this tax and how grossly warped its priorities were was by voting it down! Now these bill’s usurp our ability to do that.
SB 6582, SB 6455, HB 2751, and HB 2660 we know are backed by city of Seattle’s lobbyists. As such, this appears to us to be an attempt to circumvent the will of voters – to do an end run on voters. If you approve any of these as written, you’ll take away our right as citizens to influence how our city officials spend our tax dollars and whether they’ll go to address our city’s basic needs such as road and bridge repairs or go for frills and big ticket projects that serve only special interests.
Please say NO to SB 6582, SB 6455, HB 2751, and HB 2660. No additional car tab hikes without a public vote!
Signatories (see list of above names giving us permission to type in their names in the interest of time)
Please reply to John V. Fox 206-632-0668
THANK YOU SEATTLE! Proposition 1 is HISTORY!
For further comments from campaign organizers contact : 206-632-0668
Tax measures should be for necessities. And they should be levied against people in a position to pay. Proposition 1 fails on both counts.” – Seattle Times Editorial Seattle Times of 16 Oct 2011 (Sun)…Opinions Split on Higher Seattle Car Tabs News Bulletin: (Sept 20): 43rd Democrats Vote “No Endorsement” of Prop 1 & 11th District Democrats vote to Oppose Prop 1 Contribution: $10, $50, $100, $500, $1000 Whatever works for you. Please send your support to us at our address listed below or use our Pay Pal
News Bulletins
Seattle PI of 16 Oct 2011 (Sun)…How Will Seattle Replace Its Aging Bridges?
KOMO Radio 1000 of 17 Oct 2011 (Mon) …Ken Schram says Seattle Voters Deserve a Break on Car Tabs
KING 5 TV Upfront with Robert Mak of 09 Oct 2011 (Sun)…Seattle Prop 1 ($60 Car Tabs)
News Bulletin (Sept 16): 46th District Democrats vote last night to OPPOSE $60 car tab increase by 68% margin!
News Bulletin: (Sept 14): 34th District Democrats vote “No Endorsement” of Prop 1 $60 Car Tab Hike
News Bulletin Just in (Sept 14): Central Puget Sound Carpenters Local 30 is an official endorser of our No on $60 Car Tab Hikes and supporter of the NO campaign!”
News Bulletin (Sept 12): 37th District Democrats vote “No Endorsement” of Prop 1 $60 Car Tab Hike
Want a sign? Click here
We can’t afford it!
With King County passing a $20 car tab fee for transit, the doubling of the City’s educational levy and the City only several months ago passing an extension of its $20 extra charge, now is NOT the time to increase car tab fees by another 60 dollars a car per year.
Put simply, this is a colossally regressive tax and an enormous burden for low income, working people, small businesses, freight haulers, and people on fixed income who are struggling in a tough economy.
It’s another $60 on top of $20 recently levied by King County and another $20 already levied by the City. And you pay $60 no matter what you license, (40 ft semi, delivery truck, van, convertible, motorcycle, station wagon or “fancy” car). It’s just another example of “AN OUT OF TOUCH government SOCKING IT TO THE PEOPLE!”
Vote NO Campaign
A diverse coalition of Seattle residents and businesses have joined together and formed a PAC to oppose the City’s levy to increase car tabs by $60.
Retired residents, small businesses, low-income advocates, Democrats, Republicans and concerned residents have formed the “Citizens Against Increasing Car Tabs”. Today, the group under this name, filed its papers with the State and soon also will file papers and conform to the City’s disclosure guidelines.
We have now formally launched our “Vote NO” Campaign.
Our broad coalition from across the city is concerned about how City government spends money and the lack of concern by City leaders about the impacts of the recession on Seattle residents and businesses.
This broad coalition is opposed to the $60 car tab fee because we do not want the City’s transportation infrastructure to become one big South Park Bridge.
What about our streets and bridges?
The measure fails to allocate the majority of the new revenues towards our city’s billion dollar plus backlog of ailing street, road, sidewalk, and bridge repair needs. According to city planners, 69 of our Seattle’s 115 bridges are in “poor” “structurally deficient” or obsolete condition!
Two of those bridges have already been closed for lack of repair monies. Yet, there’s not one dime in this dedicated to those critical bridge repairs. (City Councilmembers added language into the ballot title to imply there was funding in it for bridge repairs but we just learned that thanks to the County Prosecutor, that deceptive wording was removed!)
Last winter showed the extent of the dilapidated conditions of Seattle’s bridges and streets. In spite of the number of earth quakes that have devastated many cities worldwide City government seems complacent about the City’s infrastructure risk from earth quakes. It is clear that the City is on a path to run our bridges and streets to failure.
There is no clear strategy on how to fix the extreme backlog of hundreds of million dollars of backlog of bridge and street repairs. Instead of fixing the City’s streets and bridges only 29.2% of the car tabs go “Pavement Preservation and Traffic Safety” meaning there are few dollars even for road and street maintenance in this.
No Way!!!
City officials ask that the voters trust them to maintain our transportation system. Why should we trust them? They have let our transportation infrastructure fall apart. They misstated what Bridging the Gap would accomplish. Now City officials want to rewrite history with a new set of numbers.
It is clear that they do not know what they are doing. They are just tossing money at the problem with no real solution. To top it off, councilmembers consciously wrote into this measure a paragraph allowing them to reprogram any and all of the funds after the election meaning even what we are told now about how the money will be spent is meaningless.
Even more of this package could be redirected later to frills and less for basics after the election!
We say Vote NO on increasing Car Tabs! Contact us if you want to be a part of our campaign and please contribute! Stay tuned for more later on this site for campaign updates
Our supporters opposed to $60 tab hikes include:
Sally Kinney * Bill Kirlin-Hackett * Ted Van Dyk * Andy McDonald * Ken Bertrand * Mark Baerwaldt * Rusty Williams * Jef Jaisun * Glenn Avery * Faith Fogarty
Mariana Quarnstrom * Joyce Yee * Mary Klein * Emory Bundy * Elizabeth Campbell * Jeanne Legault * Greg Buck * Chas Talbot * Travis Winn * David Yao
Mary Lou Barian * Thalia Syracopoulos * Pat Carr * Stephen Lamphear * Carolyn Forrester Irene Wall * Geov Parrish * Benjamin Wojcik * Peggy Papsdorf * Darel Grothaus
The Rev. Harriet Walden * Ray AkersJeffrey Herman * Paul Dunn * Kristin O’Donnell * Art Skolnik FAIA * Kappy Trigg * Al Runte * Gary Clark * Geof Logan * Jayne DeHaan
Janine Blaeloch * Ishbel Dickens * Anna Nissen * Sean Phelan * Rick Barrett * Rose Alfred * Phil Bereano * Bette Jo Reed * Matt Fox * Edie Koch