originally published March 27, 2017—<\/p>\n
By: Jim McKinney, Executive Director, Common Threads Northwest<\/p>\n
The WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL moratoriums on Cherry Point industrial growth and drilling previously exempt home-use wells have a dramatic impact on our economy and tax base.\u00a0 They cost businesses and individual property owners hundreds of millions of dollars.\u00a0 Because of the Council decisions, our quality of life is at risk.<\/p>\n
Petrogas Energy Inc. requested to reduce Cherry Point property values from $262M to $42M, a <\/strong>$220M loss, due to Council imposed regulations. \u00a0Ironically, the County Assessor had to ask the Council for $150,000 of taxpayer funds to fight the request. \u00a0Other Cherry Point industries are preparing similar requests. These devaluations create a massive tax revenue shortfall.<\/p>\n The value of property without access to existing water service is drastically reduced with the moratorium on domestic well-drilling.\u00a0 Taxes must be reduced to reflect the lower values.\u00a0 The County Assessor estimates between 1,000 and 1,500 properties are immediately affected. Over 5,000 properties may be impacted over 3 years \u2013 with 75% devaluations or greater.<\/p>\n The Assessor is forced to redistribute the revenue losses. Tax needs are fixed, or services are reduced \u2013 County property owners WILL PAY MORE IN TAXES<\/strong> to offset the devaluations.<\/p>\n By a significant margin, the County\u2019s largest tax contributors and top paying employers are Cherry Point heavy industries.\u00a0 Their taxes provide the highest percentage for schools, roads, services and safety in our community. \u00a0Those same revenues protect our precious environment, parks and trails.<\/p>\n Our primary industries, rural property owners and our tax base are under attack.\u00a0 Life savings, long held investments and dreams of building in the country are ruined.\u00a0 New businesses don\u2019t move to over-regulated and anti-growth communities.\u00a0 No new business, no new revenues. \u00a0No new revenues, bankruptcy often follows.<\/p>\n How will local government pay for inevitable inflation and deteriorating infrastructure \u2013 raise taxes, again?\u00a0 The math doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 No-growth may be idealistically appealing, but it is economically ruinous.<\/p>\n Whatcom County Council decisions are unfairly punishing all our citizens and undermining our economic future.\u00a0 We cherish our unique environment, but the Council must protect our economy too.\u00a0 Hold elected officials accountable \u2013 we elect them to work for us, not against us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" originally published March 27, 2017— By: Jim McKinney, Executive Director, Common Threads Northwest The WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL moratoriums on Cherry Point industrial growth and drilling previously exempt home-use wells have a dramatic impact on our economy and tax base.\u00a0 They cost businesses and individual property owners hundreds of millions of dollars.\u00a0 Because of the Council…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-research","category-wba-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369,"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions\/369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.neoninspire.com\/whatcombusinessalliance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}