Taxes spark debate in Puyallup elections. What do locals pay for police station?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Council approved a $114.5M 30-year lease for a public safety building on South Hill.
- Voters rejected new station bonds three times; council used councilmanic bonds instead.
- Opponents says lease raises taxes; council says it saves the city $30 million
Discourse about taxes and the new police station is heating up as part of the Puyallup City Council election races.
This election cycle, three seats are on the ballot. Mayor Jim Kastama is up against challenger Jeff Bennett, and Deputy Mayor Dennis King is fighting to keep his seat against challenger Heather Schiller. Newcomers Mark Crosby and Lindsay Smolko are vying for the seat of Council Member Julie Door, whose third and final term ends in January.
One of the issues this campaign season has been the council’s approach to its new police station. In August 2024, the council unanimously voted to approve a $114.5 million public safety building, which will lease space for 30 years in the Benaroya Business & Technology Center at 1015 39th Ave. SE.
Voters rejected the idea of building a new police station three times; once in November 2021, once in February 2022 and once in November 2023. The City Council used councilmanic bonds to fund the new lease, instead.
How much is the station going to cost?
According to the city’s website, the total cost of the 30-year lease is about $114.5 million.
If the city were to build its own new public safety building, similar to what they’re leasing, it would have cost $149.6 million over 30 years, The News Tribune reported.
“(This proposal) saves taxpayers $30 million,” Kastama said in an October interview with The News Tribune. “We will continue to have a presence downtown through the remodel (of the old station).”
In order to move forward with the project, the council passed it through councilmanic bonds – bonds that the city issues onto itself. The city then makes annual payments and chips away at the debt.
“It is important to note that the amount of councilmanic bonds issued is determined by how much debt capacity the City can handle,” the city’s website says. “It is also important to note that the issuance of these bonds does not affect property tax rates since they are paid using existing City funds.”
How much will the average family pay for this?
If voters had passed the bond measure in November 2023, the owner of a $500,000 home would have paid about $15 per month in property taxes to build the new building.
Agenda documents from the city’s Aug. 20, 2024 meeting make it look like the average family would pay about that much each month in various taxes and fees to pay for the new lease.
The council voted to increase its business tax on private utilities by 1.8% on Aug. 27, affecting electricity, natural gas, telephone, cable and garbage. Council increased the rate from 4.2% to 6%, and city finance director Barbara Lopez previously told The News Tribune that this comes out to about $11 per month for a family of four.
The city also increased its Comcast Cable franchise fee from 3.4% to 5%, which impacts cable companies and often results in higher bills for consumers.
City spokesperson Eric Johnson previously told The News Tribune the city also planned to levy $730,000 of its banked property tax capacity, a $3 increase per month for the owner of a $491,000 home over 30 years.
Johnson previously told The News Tribune that comparing those costs to the $15 figure doesn’t give the full picture.
“The project that went before voters in November 2023 is a very different project than this one,” Johnson said. “... That building had a different size, cost, layout, and location. A similar sized building to the one we are leasing would have cost us $149 million over a 30-year period,” Johnson said. “That comes out to about $18 more per month in property taxes in that scenario. Instead, we are leasing this building at a significantly less cost long term.”
Looking at it that way, Johnson argued: “The lease option not only saves the city $35 million over a 30-year period, it also saves residents roughly $15 per month in property tax increases.”
Candidate reactions
Bennett – Kastama’s challenger and a former police officer with the Puyallup Police Department – has spoken out against the city’s approach, saying the council should have listened to voters after they rejected a new building three times.
“Instead of building a real, permanent headquarters on the land taxpayers already own, the City Council struck a deal to rent space in the Benaroya Business Park out on South Hill,” Bennett said on his website. “No building. No equity. No asset we can pass down to the next generation. We’ll be paying rent, and after three decades of checks cut to a landlord, we’ll be right back where we started - still without a station of our own.”
A local advocacy group, Puyallup Voters for Integrity, said similar things on social media and in mailers.
In an Oct. 17 Facebook post, Kastama called the accusations from the group “mudslinging,” and said the city’s approach will save taxpayer dollars while addressing the issue of a crumbling police station.
“The City Council used existing, legally authorized banked capacity to maintain services without raising the overall city tax burden beyond state limits. It was a unanimous 7-0 decision by the Council, faced with an undersized and crumbling police station built in 1968,” Kastama wrote. “The City will lease existing space in a building where Central Pierce Fire and Rescue is also located. This will save residents tens of millions compared with past proposals and keeps officers close to the community.”
Chris Chisholm, founder of PVFI, responded in a public Facebook post.
“After your three failed attempts to get city residents to vote in favor of a bond for new police station and jail, you opted for a rental option when we, the voters, just wanted you to build an affordable police station on the land we still own,” Chisholm wrote in the post. “Now the City won’t own a building we’re investing millions of our tax dollars into renovating.”
Like Kastama, King said he stands by the city’s approach with the public safety building, fighting against accusations that the council went behind the voters’ backs after voters rejected the building three times.
“What that meant wasn’t that [voters] didn’t want a public safety building, it was that they didn’t want to have that burden financially upon them,” King said in an October interview with The News Tribune. “And so what we did is we were able to create a different strategy, different opportunity within our government to not add any additional burden to our citizens. And in fact, we actually saved, ultimately, our citizens over $30 million by going the route that we did.”
Schiller posted copies of her own property tax bills online, to show the increase this year.
“Some current council members have tried to shift blame to the state, but the facts are clear,” she wrote. “And while my opponent’s signs say ‘Keep taxes low,’ his record tells a different story.”
News Tribune archives contributed to this story.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with additional details from The News Tribune’s previous reporting about the cost of the leased building, compared to past proposals.
This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
