Thurston County Toilet Tax Gets Flushed
by Glen Morgan
“What a difference an election can make” said one Thurston County resident as he departed the Tuesday evening Thurston County Commission public hearing. “I’m not used to having elected officials actually do what they promised to do and listen to me.”
We wrote about the Thurston County, Washington State “Crap Tax” which was a tax imposed on septic tanks last year in the waning weeks of the Romero/Wolfe Commission. It was passed in December after they knew their chosen successors had lost their election efforts. Five months later it is now history.
The public hearing included a room full of people speaking both in favor of the repeal and against the repeal. As expected, the people who attended the hearing and spoke in favor of the repeal lived on properties where they had septic systems. They pointed out that today’s $10 “fee” would become tomorrow’s $100 “fee” just like car tabs. Another argument against the Crap Tax was the fact it only went to increase bureaucracy. It would not improve the environment. Finally, local residents were better stewards of their own property than remote bureaucrats.
Most of the people speaking in favor of the Crap Tax were people who lived in the City of Olympia. This included one former Olympia City Councilwoman Holly Gadbaw who spoke eloquently about how other people should pay taxes she supports. Holly was also concerned about the Thurston County Commissioners revisiting the entire septic management program for Thurston County and she wanted them to ignore their campaign promises to repeal the tax.
Tuesday night contained no high political drama. It was just another public hearing in another local community where a small fraction of the population bothers to speak to their elected officials, but it was a clear demonstration that elections do have consequences – both great and small. Commissioners Hutchings and Edwards ran on a platform of repealing this tax. Commissioner Blake voted against the tax when it was passed last year. Tuesday night’s repeal vote was unanimous. This was one campaign promise fulfilled with more likely to come.
Read the full article at We The Governed
