Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
The Belfair sewer public hearing March 1 went into more detail about how the project will affect Belfair residents.
County Administrator Mark Neary highlighted the ways the county can pay for sewer debt. Neary talked about the rural county public facilities 0.09% sales tax, which is used for overall economic development.
He also talked about the Real Estate Excise Tax, specifically the first quarter percent, which is 0.25% upon all real estate sales within unincorporated areas of the count. The money must be spent on public works projects, which would include the Belfair sewer system.
The second quarter percent, which is still 0.25%, must also be spent on capital projects listed in the capital facilities plan element of the Mason County comprehensive plan, which is more restrictive than how the first quarter percent money can be spent.
The idea was also proposed about using American Rescue Plan Act money to help pay off some debt. Commissioner Kevin Shutty talked about the state Legislature still being in session and the potential to get additional money for this and other projects within the county.
“There’s still a couple of details that need to be figured out as well as if this does go out to bid, seeing where those bids come back and I think that would help us determine, if it does move forward, what is the right blend of funding,” Shutty said.
Commissioner Randy Neatherlin said another aspect that needs to be discussed is whether the project should be done.
“We have other developers that are dreaming of having money given to them and it just doesn’t work that way,” Neatherlin said. “We’ll talk about that further, but since we’re talking about all these options, I wanted to make sure that is also part of the conversation.”
During public comments, county resident Brad Carey pleaded to the commissioners to approve the extension.
“Very rarely in life do you get everything lining up,” Carey said. “Everything goes in cycles. There’s housing booms, there’s recessions. We’re probably a little bit behind. There’s a time to tread water and there’s a time to swim with the current. Right now you guys, you can swim with the current.”
Hoodsport resident Andrew Makar said he wants to not leave any money on the table with the project and not rush into something.
North county Judy Scott said the county needs a plan to recoup the loan money.
“As Commissioner Neatherlin had said, there really isn’t a plan so I’d like to see that before you continue on with any decisions,” Scott said.
David Overton, who is the property owner of the site where the proposed next phase of the sewer project would be built, said the platitudes of no new debt, development paying for development or we did it that way at the beginning to incentivize growth sounded like election statements rather than policy statements.
“Utilities and government shouldn’t pick winners and losers,” He said. “I do think that there has to be some sort of partnership in how development is paid for but it also needs to be blind to who it is. I’m not just saying that because it’s for my benefit but because I truly believe it. There have been developments in Belfair, in Shelton, in every urban growth area that have received municipal services and then those municipal services don’t recapture a portion of the sales proceeds, there have been developments in Belfair that have happened after the sewer and sold. The county has ways to recapture and ways to finance that the private sector doesn’t and so the county takes risks but it has ways to mitigate that risk. The private sector takes risk and it has very few ways to mitigate that risk.”
The next public hearing on the Belfair sewer project is scheduled for 6 p.m. April 5.
Reader Comments(0)