[0:08] Good afternoon. For those who are watching online, I'm Chris Hart. I have a city mayor. I'll recognize

[0:16] that we have several of our I have a city council members here. We have certain of our staff also

[0:23] here with us, our department heads and others in that the impact of what has been going on with

[0:30] this referendum is significant in terms of city operations and department operations.

[0:36] So there's certainly an interest among our staff as to how this referendum was going to

[0:43] move forward.

[0:44] I'd like to begin by reading a formal statement and then we'll talk about a couple of other

[0:50] things and entertain your questions.

[0:51] conditions. This is an update on Proposition 14, the property tax referendum affecting

[0:59] Ivan City. Today, after an extensive review of the referendum signatures and signature

[1:05] verification information provided by Washington County, the city, through its duly authorized

[1:11] clerk, Carrie Jimenez, has determined that the referendum is insufficient based on only

[1:18] two of the four voter participation areas, meaning the required signature threshold.

[1:24] To be deemed sufficient, the law requires, among other things, that the required threshold

[1:29] be met in three of the four voter participation areas.

[1:35] The city recognizes that this outcome is contrary to the hopes of those who signed the petition.

[1:41] To help all involved understand the information that led to this determination, the city has

[1:46] invited representatives of the sponsors to view the data and verify its accuracy.

[1:53] The city will not be publishing the data itself unless and until the sponsors have had

[1:59] a chance to verify it for themselves and opt not to do so.

[2:06] The law governing truth and taxation itself and a referendum related to truth and taxation

[2:18] There are three entities involved, the county, the city, and the sponsors and those who are soliciting signatures on the petition.

[2:32] The city has made every effort to follow to the letter of that law its responsibilities in this regard.

[2:39] And the signature that Kerry has attached with the insufficient notification to the county has been done after a thorough review of the data and discussion among our legal team and city manager and myself to authorize that to move forward.

[3:03] The county's responsibility is to process the signatures as they come in to determine if they are legitimate registered voters, and that process was completed recently, a couple of days ago, and the information made available to us.

[3:27] Carrie is the final representative of the city who makes the declaration as to whether the petition is sufficient or insufficient.

[3:36] We have three maps up here that you're welcome to look at after comments and questions that illustrates somewhat specifically in specifically in that there may be more than one registered voter under a specific dot.

[3:53] So counting the dots doesn't quite get you to the finish line on trying to analyze this,

[3:58] but it does show you at least the spread of those who assigned their names to this petition.

[4:08] And with that, I'll take any questions that you may have.

[4:12] If I can't answer them, I have these folks seated on the stand who I believe can.

[4:18] And so

[4:25] the city is moving forward on the basis of its final budget decision made on August 14th.

[4:36] That included the $850,000 tax increase that was challenged through the referendum.

[4:45] And the county will be sending out tax notices here very soon actually.

[4:50] and they have prepared, I think, maybe both versions of this, depending on how the signature process turned out.

[4:59] So the tax notices should reflect the tax increase,

[5:06] yes, sir.

[5:17] Well, the way the law reads, it's very strange in that had the sufficient number of signatures been garnered.

[5:26] And in reality, it's important to say, in total, the number that would have been required

[5:34] is there.

[5:35] It's like the Electrical College, I guess, I don't know what they were thinking, but

[5:39] the legislature requires that we break the city into four quadrants that are reflective

[5:46] of a similar population and contiguous.

[5:52] So, that's why you see the map is very determined to accomplish those two objectives.

[6:04] And then that map is approved by the county as I understand it, that it does in fact reflect

[6:11] the intent of the law.

[6:13] And that map was provided to the sponsors of the referendum.

[6:20] and I believe they've been operating using that map for their efforts in

[6:26] garnering signatures. That didn't answer the question though, did it?

[6:32] I'm good at that.

[6:39] The city director has been around paying you this for

[6:45] a third time for the first.

[6:46] Yes.

[6:50] So I only got a part way through that before I diverted, had the outcome

[6:56] been different, had all of the quadrants achieved their required percentages. Then it goes to the voters.

[7:05] This issue is already on the ballot. And those folks will be receiving their ballots here

[7:13] in the next day or so. So you're going to see that on there. The city's actually sort of taking

[7:17] the position that you might want to go ahead and register their vote in case there's something that

[7:23] It shows up after our meeting here today that would prompt it to go to the voters.

[7:31] We don't see where that would come from, but we're encouraging that anyway.

[7:38] Had the signatures played out in favor of the sponsors of the referendum, the tax notices

[7:51] This would have gone out using our previous year's tax amount.

[7:58] That would have left the city in approximately $850,000 shortfall, based on the budget that

[8:05] we had and of course would have required an extensive review of the budget and we would

[8:11] have had no doubt to open the budget to amend it based on the loss of that revenue.

[8:18] We have practically speaking asked our department heads to hold off on any hiring or purchasing

[8:28] new equipment until this was resolved, and it would have been resolved in two or three

[8:36] weeks with the election anyway, but we have, of course, purposely held off on purchasing

[8:44] things that were based on the final budget that was adopted that would have had to be reviewed,

[8:51] had the referendum succeeded.

[8:57] Anybody else?

[9:00] So I just like to say, having in my past been

[9:04] involved in community efforts, not just here, but elsewhere, that we recognize that there's been

[9:11] a great deal of work.

[9:15] Analysis and walking the streets, Chad came to my own doorstep was

[9:21] surprised when I opened the door, I think, but we had a nice visit, but a lot of work

[9:25] by Chad and others in canvassing the city and requesting that folks consider whether or

[9:33] this tax increase should occur. And to the extent that this is reflective of how the

[9:42] city thinks, great, I guess we're not going to know because we're not going to see

[9:48] it reflected on a ballot.

[9:54] Anybody else? So I will say too, obviously staff will breathe

[10:01] We breathe the sigh of relief with this because there are jobs and positions and needed equipment that were impacted by this challenge to the budget.

[10:13] And I want to assure the community that never have we, at least in my experience, and certainly not now, have we intentionally at least squandered the tax revenue that we received through property tax from our residents.

[10:31] residents. I've sat through a bit by now sharing thousands of hours in discussions on budgets and what can we get along without and can we defer acquiring such and such for another year or two or three it just eventually reaches the point that when you do that long enough that you find yourself unable to fully fulfill the responsibilities that we feel we have as a city.

[11:01] to provide appropriate services,

[11:04] quality of parks and a variety of other things

[11:08] that we realize through our survey,

[11:12] our residents in general at least or in the majority

[11:16] want us to provide.

[11:18] So, had the referendum succeeded,

[11:21] you can see that taking $850,000 out of roughly

[11:25] We have five and a little bit million dollar general fund budget.

[11:31] Would have been a major, a major number to have to deal with, but we will continue to be

[11:40] frugal.

[11:41] I'm looking out of my council members and just thinking of the well, what about this or

[11:47] do we really need this discussions and credit to formerly Dale Cooom, our previous city manager

[11:53] and to Chuck Gillette, now our city manager, as he works with our department heads to analyze

[12:01] what the city needs. Now, one person might look at a purchase or the addition of an additional staff

[12:11] member as being extravagant, and others may look at that and say that we're not doing enough.

[12:18] So it's always hard in government to find the balance.

[12:21] We feel like we're doing our best to do that,

[12:24] and assure anyone who is observing this,

[12:30] that that is our goal every year to do that,

[12:33] to have a reasonable budget,

[12:34] and to provide the level of service that we believe

[12:37] we're being called upon to provide by our residents.

[12:43] Anything else?

[12:44] All right.

[12:45] You're welcome once again to scrutinize the maps

[12:47] if you have an interest in that.

[12:49] Let's open it for any further questions and if there are none, I'll just say thank you for coming.

Press Release regarding Proposition 14

Agenda

Transcript