February election ballots are due Feb. 8. Here’s what’s up for vote in Puyallup
Remnants from a pipe bomb that was left outside the Puyallup Municipal Court clerk’s office can still be seen on the ceilings that people walk under when they visit the building.
The incident happened years before Judge Andrea Beall joined the Municipal Court about 10 years ago. The bomb blew out the windows of the office, and pieces of glass are still embedded on the ceiling if people look closely, Beall said.
“Having glass around us is obviously of concern to us,” Beall said about the building.
Since 2003, the court has been operating in a leased commercial office space on the first floor of 929 E. Main. The court used to be at the old city hall, which is where the Puyallup Activity Center at 210 W. Pioneer Ave. currently stands.
The leased commercial office space was supposed to be a temporary location, Beall said. In February, Puyallup voters will get to decide if the court should have a permanent space in South Hill or stay at the current location.
The city is resurrecting the Public Safety Building bond measure on the Feb. 8 special election ballot. The measure failed last year after the general election. It received 5,613 votes or about 59.3 percent of the vote, The News Tribune reported. The measure needed 60 percent to pass.
This time, the city lowered the bond amount from $82.7 million to $81 million. City spokesperson Eric Johnson said the project will still cost $82.7 million, but the city will use the net proceeds from the sale of the current police building to offset the cost of the new building.
“The project is still the same. It’s still the same location,” Johnson said. “The reason why we are going back out in February is that we had a very high number of undervotes from November.”
There were 465 undervotes for the measure, according to the Pierce County Auditor’s Office. This means 465 people didn’t clearly mark “Yes” nor “No” on their ballots.
Educating voters
Johnson said this also means that those voters “did not have enough information to make an informed decision.” To help with that, the city sent mailers, created a video and updated their website for the project, he said.
If approved, the measure would place the police department, jail and Municipal Court in one building at 600 39th Ave. SE. It would also establish a police substation on the first floor of City Hall.
Puyallup homeowners who own a median-priced home would pay about $17.80 per month or $214 per year in property tax for 25 years. If the bond passed last year, people would have paid about $20 per month or $240 per year.
Johnson said the original estimated cost for the project was $120 million, which was too high for the council to approve in 2019. The council asked city staff and the consulting firm Mackenzie to refine the price tag, which led to the $82.7 million figure in 2021.
Decreasing the number of beds for inmates from 100 to 80 helped lower the cost, The News Tribune reported. Cutting structural features on the building such as awnings over parking spaces and windows that blocked the sun’s glare also helped.
“Of the features that we eliminated that was where we got the biggest cost savings — lowering the number of beds in the jail,” Johnson said.
The police department’s current building at 311 W. Pioneer Ave. was built in 1968 and was originally made for a staff of about 23 people. Now there are about 95 employees working in cramped office spaces, The News Tribune reported.
The building’s roofs are leaking, there have been HVAC issues and the sewer backs up frequently, The News Tribune reported. One of the bathrooms was turned into an office for the department’s youth explorer program.
“We’ve gotten really good at putting lipstick on a pig,” Chief Scott Engle told The News Tribune last year. “We’re at that point where (I have) no more rabbits to pull out of my hat to make this facility work.”
Beall said the court is also facing space issues similar to the police department. The court does not have a secured lobby — the space leading to the clerk’s office has two elevators on the left that lead to other businesses that operate on the floors above the court.
The court also does not have “adequate facilities” for jurors, Beall said. They use one of the two courtrooms on their floor for the jury to deliberate and they do not have their own restroom, unlike other courts such as Tukwila Municipal Court.
“We have an office space that has been converted into a court and (was) never designed to be a court,” Beall said. “There are a lot of issues that come along with that. Our space is not well designed for a court facility.”
Court administrator Ellen Attebery said both courtrooms do not have acoustics or speakers, which makes it difficult for those who may be unable to hear well. Little speakers have been planted on desks to help with that in the meantime.
“I think the city of Puyallup needs to have a nicer place for their police and courts,” Attebery said. “Those are like the cornerstones of the city … and that’s a piece that’s missing.”
Not only will voters have the bond on their ballot, but they also will have two levies from the Puyallup School District — the capital levy and educational programs and operations levy.
‘It’s up to voters to decide’
The capital levy covers school infrastructure upgrades and the EP&O levy covers day-to-day operations, unfunded salaries and school supplies, The News Tribune reported.
If the EP&O levy passes, the average Puyallup homeowner would pay $2.49 per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2023 and $2.46 in 2024-26. If the capital levy passes, the average homeowner would pay $0.82 in 2023, $0.79 in 2024, $0.75 in 2025, $0.72 in 2026, $0.70 in 2027 and $0.67 in 2028.
If both levies pass, the average Puyallup homeowner would pay about $150 more in property taxes in 2023 compared to last year, The News Tribune reported.
“We realize that this is a difficult time for voters and although we are the seventh-largest district in the state we pride ourselves on being good stewards of public funds with having one of the lowest tax rates when compared to neighboring districts,” school district spokesperson Sarah Gillispie said.
Gillispie said the school district has plans in place in case both levies do not pass. If voters do not approve the levies, the school district may have to make “tough decisions” about staff salaries and benefits, athletics and extracurricular activities as well as delaying maintenance work, she said.
When asked about the city’s plans should voters choose not to pass the bond, Johnson said the city will just “wait and see what happens.” The city will reassess its options after the special election, he said.
“It’s up to voters to decide whether or not they want to fund this project,” Johnson said. “The best that we can do is get those educational materials out there so that people can do their research and make an informed decision on Feb. 8.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
