The Pierce County Council must have been so proud last month when members received that big award from the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.
Pierce was one of six counties to receive the trust’s “Landmark Deeds Award for Public Service.”
All the county did was spend a small bit of money set aside by the Legislature in the way the Legislature intended it – to expand historic preservation programs.
Pierce County, led by Councilman Tim Farrell, took one dollar from a state-authorized $3 increase in document recording fees and set up a competitive grant program to help save historic structures. The money also paid for a countywide survey of historic structures and allowed the promotion of the half-time historic preservation officer to full-time.
Since 2005 the county has collected a total of $1.23 million. The revenue budgeted for this year is $200,000.
The trust was especially complimentary of the six counties – Benton, Clark, Kittitas, San Juan and Snohomish being the others – for keeping their commitment in tough economic times.
Not so fast. By the time the award was presented by historic trust field director Chris Moore, the county grant program had been suspended. Following the lead of County Executive Pat McCarthy, the council moved the money into existing preservation programs including the entire compensation for the county preservation officer.
“The spirit of the legislation called for creation of new programs and/or enhancement of existing programs – not budget supplementation,” Moore said in an e-mail after being told the county had suspended the grant program.
He termed the County Council’s action “disappointing.”
This is the flip side of the whole unfunded mandates rhetoric. That’s when the state orders local government to add an expensive new function without providing the money to pay for it. In this case, the locals are given the money for a new activity but skim it off to other uses or simply to pay for what it was already doing with local funds.
This sort of supplanting is why the Legislature is suspicious of local government requests for help with finances. This is why the state often includes complex anti-supplanting language that creates paperwork and headaches for the locals to prove they aren’t skimming.
Perhaps this fee needed such language as well.
The county’s action also perpetuates the notion that historic preservation is a luxury, something that is affordable in good times but not in bad.
In truth, historic preservation has been one of the most effective economic development strategies available to local governments. Much of the construction activity in Tacoma, for example, has been due to preservation work. Even with local and federal tax advantages, restored buildings pay more in taxes than the parking lots that too often would have replaced them.
And unlike the mega projects that most economic development bureaucrats hope for, preservation work tends to use local contractors and local suppliers. Rehabilitated buildings don’t end up in the landfill, leading some advocates to say that the greenest building is one already standing.
No local government would cut its economic development programs in bad times. Instead politicians hope that such efforts will lead the local economy out of recession. Yet they cut what has been a proven winner, not just in preserving local history and culture but in feeding economic activity.
The suspension came just as Pierce County, a laggard in historic preservation, was beginning to see the value in identifying and saving what it has.
Farrell said he isn’t giving up. Since the county preservation officer was laid off in December, he said he would like to use some of that money for what he termed a “small, very small” bricks-and-mortar grant effort.
“Our program was successful in distributing over $150,000 for physical improvements to historic structures in Pierce County.” Farrell said Monday. “This was, to my knowledge, one of the few stimulus packages that Pierce County initiated in 2009 and has been very successful.”
Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657
peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
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