'Completely unacceptable': Legislator wants special tax districts held accountable
In the Thurston County Conservation District offices there were so many problems that it took an investigator 61 pages to spell them out in a report to the state commission with oversight of Washington’s 45 conservation districts.
That report prompted the Washington State Conservation Commission in February to remove two board supervisors from the Thurston County district after finding they abused staff and mishandled public funds.
Yet, when it came time to replace those elected supervisors at the ballot box, most of Thurston County’s 182,000 eligible voters were left in the dark. Only 1,080 voters, less than 1 percent of registered voters, cast a ballot in the March election.
That’s because, like most conservation districts in Washington, ballots are issued by request only. Thurston property owners, who collectively fund the conversation district with $1 million in taxes yearly, must contact the district and ask for a ballot if they want to vote.
“That is categorically ridiculous. What is the purpose of a made-up election if you are not going to be serious about it?” asked state Sen. Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle).
Carlyle said the ballot-by-request-only policy is just one example of longstanding problems with Washington’s nearly 2,000 “special purpose” districts, created by state lawmakers over the last century.
He’s proposing changes in state law in the 2020 legislative session.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/completely-unacceptable-legislator-wants-special-tax-districts-held-accountable/ar-AABdnV1