I’m done with property owners bearing the brunt of city services, which means I’m tired of bond propositions, regardless of what they are for. Nearly every bond proposition is repaid with property owners’ taxes, so this isn’t me exaggerating facts.
Our city is the state’s largest metropolitan area, and not considering tourism or traffic into and out of the airport, we have somewhere in the vicinity of 40,000 commuters every day into and out of our city. This based on previous articles regarding commuter traffic on the Glenn and Seward highways — which I have not looked at lately. The point, simply, is this — every single one of these folks use our city services and pay zilch. Nothing!
Conversely, you don’t go to the Mat-Su or many other areas in our state — or outside Alaska — without paying a sales tax. A sales tax is non-discriminatory; doesn’t matter your race, religion, sexual orientation, rich, poor, or whatever. Everyone pays! And it could very easily pay for a substantial portion of the service costs which property owners are asked continuously to bear. And, of course I would expect my property taxes to be adjusted accordingly based on the revenues a sales tax would generate.
Yes, I know a sales tax creates additional burdens on businesses and also it would create another aspect of government to manage. But don’t make this an obstacle that can’t be overcome. It’s such a commonplace item in local and state governments throughout our country, I’m quite certain there are resources and software that can make this happen.
I appreciate our city services; I have lived here 40 years, but I’m done voting for bond propositions that are not equally shared or have a “special interest” attached to them. We’re going to use taxes from marijuana to support early childcare/childhood development. Now that’s almost comical. We need a sales tax to stop this jamming bond propositions down our throats.
— Don Tallman
Eagle River
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