The Ocean Shores City Council on Monday continued to debate the need for forming a Transportation Benefit District to fund road and street maintenance.
Proposed by Councilman John Lynn, the Transportation Benefit District (TBD) is a tool for local governments that authorizes the legislative authority to raise funds for the “purposes of acquiring, constructing, improving, providing and funding transportation improvements.”
The city’s proposed ordinance noted that the current Ocean Shores Transportation Improvement Plan “includes evidence indicating a need for a coordinated cost-efficient approach to street resurfacing improvement and other improvements that may be funded by a TBD.”
Having such a district “would enable the city … to consider and adopt mechanisms to fund required city street resurfacing in a coordinated and efficient manner.”
Lynn urged the council to make a decision to form the district to start the process in determining how much the city needs to raise for long-range street improvements and maintenance.
“We need to ask ourselves some questions before we start limiting our street-funding options,” Lynn said at Monday’s regular council meeting. “The $29.3 million cost of the current street debt was a heavy one for our citizens. Here in just a few short years after the project was completed (in 2010), the streets are beginning to show obvious problems.”
During a previously held public hearing, most citizens favored the TBD only if the City Council limited its taxing authority to a local 0.2 percent sales and use tax increase, which would have to be approved by voters.
During Monday’s meeting, Councilman Jon Martin also moved to have a limitation placed in the ordinance from the outset, removing an option that would allow the TBD governing body — the City Council — from imposing a license tab fee, which is another funding mechanism authorized by the state but not requiring a public vote.
The annual vehicle fee could be from $20 to a maximum of $100. Lynn said one third of the cities in the state — 91 out of 261 — have opted to form a Transportation Benefit District, including Aberdeen
According to Lynn’s calculations, a sales and use tax increase would bring in about $145,000-$170,000 a year. Uses would be for adding gravel to sides of streets, chemical treatment of grass, sealing, fog-striping, chip sealing, repairs to potholes, cracks and sinking pavement; and provide matching funds for bigger projects such a bridge replacements, sidewalks and street lighting.
He has maintained that the sales tax also is paid by visitors as well as residents, which allows for the burden to be spread to those who use the city’s roads without actually living here.
“Once approved, it would take at least two years by my estimate to raise funds significant enough to begin work on the streets,” Lynn said in a document filed with the council agenda packet.
The council, however, was hesitant to take action, and it voted 5-2 on a proposal by Councilwoman Holly Plackett to take the TBD ordinance off of the table for action on Monday night.
Martin said he agreed with Lynn that “there is something obviously that needs to be done with the streets.”
“However, I do believe the citizens should have a vote on whatever that is going to be,” he said, explaining his amendment.
Several residents also raised questions about what the priorities would be and asked for more details about how the money would be used, and no one spoke in favor of using the license tab option.
Susan Conniry noted the proposed ordinance had a number of typographical errors in it, and that neither the public notice of the previously held public hearing nor the council ordinance specify the functions or activities to be funded by the district.
There are provisions in state law creating a TBD that allow amending a project list with a material change order, Conniry noted. “But how can you amend a list that doesn’t exist? The absence of a specific project list might be the reason that so many citizens and a couple of council members are not comfortable with creating the TBD.”
Lillian Broadbent, however, urged the council to move forward with the proposal: “It’s time to quit passing the buck. In acting, the Transportation Benefit District does not spend any of your money. It requires a vote of the people. I believe I represent a large number of the people who would not like to start from scratch with our roads.”
