Don’t kill plan to turn taxpayers into owners
There are two good reasons to reject the Pierce County referendum designed to kill a planned $127 million county services building.
Reason One: Nobody has offered a better plan to spare taxpayers the big rent checks the county must now write for leased space. Reason Two: The ballot measure itself is a travesty of the referendum process.
Start with the economics.
Opponents of the nine-story building talk as if the taxpayers will save $127 million ($236 million, including interest) by cancelling the project. That’s like telling a renter he’ll save $250,000 if he doesn’t buy the house — it ignores the rent and the equity. There’s a reason people scrimp and save to get into homes of their own: They don’t want to spend their lives at the mercy of landlords and housing markets.
Pierce County currently pays more than $3 million a year leasing space in eight places. The bills will only increase year by year; that’s what rent does. Referendum 2015-1 would kill an effort to turn the taxpayers from renters to owners.
The project would consolidate much of county government in a new nine-story building to be built on the county-owned site of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department in Tacoma’s Lincoln District. The health department would move in and pay $1 million a year in rent. Further economies are possible by ending administrative redundancies at multiple sites.
The idea is lease-to-own. Under the contract approved by the Pierce County Council last winter, a private developer would construct the building at a capped cost and collect fixed lease payments; the county would assume full ownership after 30 years.
Voters should be aware that the referendum was partially financed by landlords who’ve been collecting $1 million a year in rent from the county. Their gravy train stops if the new building goes up. Pure public spirit isn’t the only motive behind this measure.
Our other gripe about the referendum is a matter of civics.
The idea of representative democracy is to elect competent officials who make most of the policy and operational decisions of government.
Pure democracy — putting every important decision to a public vote — has been a failure everywhere it’s been attempted. While some citizens follow the affairs of government closely, most are simply too busy to study issues in depth. Recognizing this, America’s founders made a point of putting governance in the hands of chosen representatives.
Washington is one of the most democracy-friendly places in the country. This state’s citizens enjoy broad rights of initiative and referendum.
But there has to be a limit. Operational decisions — such as executing a lease after the County Council has approved it — aren’t fair game for disgruntled citizens and people who stand to profit if they can block the action.
Referendum 2015-1 is a terrible precedent. If opponents could contest every major executive decision at the polls, government would be driven back and forth by the winds of demagoguery, exactly the scenario representative democracy is designed to avoid.
Referendum 2015-is bad on principle and bad on a practical level. Voters should reject it in November.
This story was originally published September 19, 2015 at 9:33 AM with the headline "Don’t kill plan to turn taxpayers into owners."