County Council OKs levy for vets, other groups

Patching over a deep political division, the King County Council agreed Monday night to ask voters to raise property taxes to provide social services not only for veterans but also a broad array of other needy groups.

The compromise, passed on a 12-1 vote, united council advocates of a levy solely for veterans and their families with council members who wanted to wait a year to seek voter approval of a bigger, more comprehensive human-services measure.

Proponents of the veterans' levy had ample votes to pass that measure, a permanent levy that would have increased property taxes 4.1 cents per $1,000 of property value. That proposal was before the council for a vote.

But its supporters agreed to raise the levy by 5 cents per $1,000 -- or $12.50 on a $250,000 home -- for six years and to split the $13.5 million in annual tax revenue, with half going to veterans and half to other social-services needs.

The latter half will include housing, homelessness, mental health, substance abuse and employment assistance programs.

The money for veterans and their families will include help for children, the elderly, the unemployed and veteran-specific needs such as treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The compromise was brokered by council members Bob Ferguson, D-Seattle, and Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac, two of four co-sponsors of the veterans' levy.

Patterson said she came to the meeting "prepared to fight for a veterans' levy." But she felt uneasy, she said, "because it has so severely divided this council ... and that didn't bode well for passage" by county voters in the Nov. 8 election.

She and other council backers of the veterans' levy said they were swayed by public testimony by human-services advocates who criticized what they termed the "divisive" veterans' measure and called for a more comprehensive 2006 levy. Opponents of the veterans' levy outnumbered supporters more than 3-1 in Monday's testimony.

The compromise pleased neither veterans' advocates nor other human-services leaders.

"Our position hasn't changed: We don't think this is the right year," said Laura Wells, chairwoman of the King County Alliance for Human Services, an umbrella organization of social service agencies. It opposed the veterans' proposal for fear it would dilute support for a broader, $20 million 2006 tax levy.

Wells said the seven weeks until the general election isn't enough time to mount an effective campaign, and "the anti-tax sentiment" of voters drawn to the ballot by anti-gas-tax Initiative 912 will endanger passage of the county tax measure.

The council recessed its meeting twice, for a total of two hours, while the two opposing factions tried to negotiate a compromise. After veterans' advocates reluctantly agreed to a proposal that would give them 60 percent of the tax proceeds, further negotiations turned the final version into a 50-50 split.

"I'll support any levy. My concern is that if it goes 50-50, it's no longer a veterans' levy" and might have less voter appeal, said Stan Gunno, a leader of the Washington State Disabled American Veterans and a member of the King County Veterans' Program Advisory Board.

The only "no" vote came from Councilwoman Kathy Lambert, R-Redmond, a co-sponsor of the veterans' levy bill, who said, "We've compromised to the point that nobody is served and no problems are solved."

The months-long fight between the two social-services camps was steeped in election-year politics, especially since Ferguson and Councilwoman Carolyn Edmonds, D-Shoreline, are running against each other in next week's primary and were on opposite sides of the issue.

Edmonds favored a broader human services levy and has slammed Ferguson in campaign mailings for backing the bipartisan veterans' levy, which was supported by all six Republicans as well as Democrats Ferguson and Patterson. The other five Democrats opposed it.

P-I reporter Neil Modie can be reached at 206-448-8321 or neilmodie@seattlepi.com.

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