Letter to the editor: The Swope/Brummer Tax is real

There has been a lot of commentary on the pages of The Chronicle about taxes lately. However, none of the commentators have addressed the new tax we have been levied in Lewis County. One that came without a mandate or a vote. It didn’t come from Olympia. It came from Lewis County Commissioners Swope and Brummer.

Lewis County taxpayers have been levied roughly $600,000 in outside legal fees tied to the needle exchange lawsuit. That number was acknowledged publicly during the repeal discussion. The Chronicle reported it, and recent public records requests have proved it out.

Six-hundred-thousand dollars. Let that sink in.

I am going to call the new tax what it is: The Swope/Brummer Tax. Based on countywide assessed valuation in Lewis County, the new tax works out to about $0.04 per $1,000 of assessed value.  Sounds small? Scale it.

It’s roughly 4% of the county regular levy, 3% of the Centralia School District general levy, 14% of the Centralia Port levy, and 17% of the Timberland Regional Library levy. It is in effect its own levy. Except we didn’t get to vote on whether to accept it or not. That was all Swope and Brummer.

The $600,000 represents real money snatched away from the same taxpayers who are constantly warned about “wasteful spending” in Olympia.

You see it regularly on the pages of The Chronicle. The outrage. The lectures. The fiscal virtue signaling aimed at the Washington state Legislature. Higher taxes. Reckless budgets. Government overreach.

Fine. If that’s the standard, apply it here, because fiscal responsibility should be backed by action, not just words.

This lawsuit was avoidable and the outcome predictable. The legal footing was thin from day one. Public health authority in Washington is settled law, and county leadership was warned about their exposure. They moved forward anyway. A federal judge eventually blocked enforcement. The county repealed the ordinance. The bill remained.

The outcome was predictable, and predictable losses using public dollars equate to fiscal mismanagement.

The county has talked about budget shortfalls, told departments to tighten belts, and told taxpayers, “There just isn’t enough”, but they somehow spent $600,000 to pay for outside counsel on a doomed lawsuit?

That money could have supported law enforcement, public health and other core services. Instead, it funded a political fight that ended exactly where many warned it would.

Local Republican leaders should take note. It is hypocrisy to campaign against wasteful spending and out of control taxes in Olympia, while standing by quietly as Commissioners Swope and Brummer hand taxpayers a $600,000 invoice for an ideological gamble. It gives their argument no legs.

If Olympia imposed a new levy equal to 4% of our regular county levy, The Chronicle’s pages would explode with commentary from local Republican leaders rallying against it.

This one came from inside their own house.

The Swope/Brummer Tax is real. It has a number. It has a receipt. And it was avoidable.

Accountability cuts both ways. Taxpayers should remember that the next time they see Swope or Brummer on a ballot. A vote yes for either might generate a new tax.

Matt Evans

Centralia