SILVERDALE – Highways, ferries, education and firearms were among the topics of discussion at a “town hall” meeting with legislators representing the 23rd district March 14.
Around 100 people filled a meeting room at the Jenne-Wright Administration Center in Silverdale to listen to state Sen. Christine Rolfes and state representatives Sherry Appleton and Drew Hansen.
The trio took questions on a variety of subjects:
• McCleary the biggest issue for state
Rolfes said the biggest issue before the state right now was how to comply with the state supreme court’s decision to adequately fund public schools. School budgets were too reliant on local levies, the court said.
“In some districts the schools may look like they’re funded amply but that’s not because the state is funding them, that’s because the local voters are funding them. And one of the issues that the supreme court laid out was that that in itself is unconstitutional because the wealthier communities can pay more taxes than the lower income communities and therefore students in rural Washington or in poorer urban areas weren’t receiving the same education that students in more affluent areas were,” Rolfes said.
Rolfes said the state needed to fully fund school buses, smaller classrooms, all-day kindergarten and maintenance and operation costs. It would cost at minimum $1.3 billion over two years, she said.
Teachers also needed to be paid market rates, she said.
“The state sends the Central Kitsap School District $35,000 (for example) for that teacher, but very few school districts can actually attract and retain a school teacher for $35,000 so their levies are being used to add $9,000 to that teacher’s salary,” Rolfes said, which the court said was not right.
Rolfes said more funding would be needed to pay for McCleary, and that the legislature didn’t have a solid plan for how to achieve that goal, but added talks were ongoing.
Hansen agreed.
“We’re going to look at raising revenue,” he said.
One way to raise funds, Hansen said, might be to raise the business and occupation rate from 1.5 to 1.8 percent which could generate $500 million.
Appleton said the budget chairs wanted to ask voters to set aside I-1351. Schools had run out of classrooms, Appleton said, so reduced class sizes would exacerbate that problem.
Hansen said cost-of-living adjustments to teacher salaries were likely because the recession was long over.
• Mental health issues also a priority
Noting that one in four Americans had a mental health issue and one in 17 had a debilitating mental health issue such as schizophrenia, Rolfes said that Washington state needed to make more beds available to people with mental health problems.
“Washington ranked 49 out of 50 in terms of hospital beds we have for mentally ill people,” Rolfes said.
“Joel’s Law” would also allow families to appeal a psychiatric decision and get a second opinion in order to have a family member placed in a mental hospital to keep both the family members and the patient safe.
• Ferry fares
Rolfes said the transportation budget was almost fully funded by gasoline taxes and licensing fees. New projects, such as addressing Gorst congestion or building a new ferry, would require new funding.
“The only way to do that is to find a new source of revenue so that’s either raise the gas tax or raise fees,” Rolfes said.
Rolfes said it was a struggle to keep ferry rates low and ferry service at its current level, but that a gasoline tax and fee increase should preserve existing ferry service levels and keep fare increases low.
“People should know the ferry fares cover 80 percent of the cost of running the ferry system. Which is way higher, way higher, than any transit system in the state,” Rolfes said.
“The Bainbridge run, the Kingston run and the Mukilteo-Clinton run … usually in a good year make more than the cost of operating them and that helps to subsidize some of the other runs,” she said.
But ferry fares do not cover the cost of terminal maintenance nor ferry construction. Those funds come from the transportation budget.
• Fast Foot Ferry
Hansen said he was indifferent to a fast foot ferry to connect Bremerton and Seattle, but that he would like to put it to a vote.
“If that comes to pass imagine what kind of game changer that can be for Bremerton. I was talking to a homebuilder after one of our last town halls and he said, ‘man, if you get that in I am going to make a lot of money putting in a lot of new housing developments because a lot more people are going to want to live in Bremerton,'” Hansen said.
• New Bainbridge bridge unlikely
Appleton said a second bridge to Bainbridge Island was not feasible.
“One mile of bridging right now costs a billion dollars. So keep that in mind,” she said.
Rolfes agreed and said the state could only focus on maintaining existing bridges.
“The Agate Pass Bridge … that’s rated at a 50 out of a 100 points by the Department of Transportation … that’s a failing grade. But it’s not failing compared to the bridges that are rated at 18, 19 and 20.”
“The state’s efforts on bridges aren’t on building new bridges. They’re on repairing bridges and expanding some of the bridges that we already have,” Rolfes said.
• Firearm background checks
“If you go buy a firearm at Cabela’s they run you through the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) system, they do a background check to see if you’re a felon or if you’ve been involuntarily mentally committed,” Hansen said.
“Up until recently, if I bought a gun (for example) from Sen. Rolfes, she didn’t have to run me through a NICS system or anything. That seems to me to be crazy.”
Prior to I-594 Hansen favored softer legislation that included background checks while respecting Second Amendment rights, but it went nowhere.
“So enter I-594. Now I-594 which – full disclosure, I voted for because I thought a flawed background check regime was better than no background check regime – is not as protective of Second Amendment rights as the bill in the house.”
“This is sort of a ‘lesson learned’ moment for the National Rifle Association, that if you insist on saying ‘no no no no no’ at the legislative level, the people may take a different tack then you are prepared to have them take. And if that happens all of the sudden you need a big, gigantic vote in the legislature to do something about it.”
Hopefully, Hansen said, I-594 would give parties involved to look at compromises in the future.
• Oil trains
Rolfes said oil trains didn’t affect Kitsap specifically, but noted that mile-long oil trains do pass through the I-5 corridor carrying volatile North Dakota oil.
Rolfes said the North Dakota oil was more explosive than other types of oil.
“That oil, when there’s a derailment or some kind of accident, it’s highly volatile and it explodes,” she said.
Rolfes wanted railroad and oil companies to work with local firefighters to inform them of the location of the trains as they passed through the area.
• Coal power plants
Puget Sound Energy and its customers get a lot of their electricity from the coal-fired power plant in Colstrip, Montana, Rolfes said, but Washington State is trying to reduce its reliance on coal to reduce carbon emissions.
“We had a bill to help PSE gradually get out of the coal business and the state of Montana screamed ‘you’re going to destroy our economy,'” Rolfes said, and threatened to jack up rates.
Rolfes said Washington state was trying to work with Montana to find a way to get cleaner energy.
• Silver Tsunami coming
Appleton said that by 2030, 15 percent of the population would be over the age of 85 – a “silver tsunami.”
With dementia and Alzheimer’s remaining problems, many of those seniors will wander from home. Appleton favored a “silver alert” program to use electronic reader boards and the Washington State Patrol to locate wandering seniors and return them safely home.
