Ennis Accuses Mayor of Using Police to Strong-arm Council into Reneging on Tax Cut Promise

Councilmember Mike Ennis this week accused city administration of using the police department as political leverage to skirt a promise to roll back property taxes following last year's fire annexation.

Ennis has been  with the administration in what he says is an attempt to convince Council to go back on its word that it would roll back the impact of increased property taxes due to the fire annexation last year by 89 cents per $1,000 assessed value. 

During the last of four budget workshops this week, Ennis described the act of bringing not only Police Chief Jim Zoll before Council but two additional members of the department to plead for an additional officer position next year a "full court press by administration" to go back on its promise.

"This is a scare tactic by this mayor to force our hand to not roll back the property tax rate as we promised," he said.

He called out what he said was a big shift in the position of the department regarding the frozen officer position, which has remained unfilled for the past seven years due to continuing budget constraints.

Mayor Liz Reynolds defended the presentation by police officials, saying the economic downturn has changed financial health of the city and circumstances for the police department as well, and one way to adapt is to keep property taxes where they were rather than implement the rollback. 

"It would be shortsighted on our part" to not make all implications and scenarios available to Council prior to decisions being made, she told Patch last week. "What I want to know is what is Council's vision for the police situation."

It's a question of easing the tax burden or cutting quality of life for city residents, meaning jeopardizing public safety and streets, she said. "Are we really representing what is important to them?" she asked.

In prior discussions regarding the city's new land annexations this year and how police service would be affected, Ennis said Zoll had always maintained that the department had adequate staffing to service the existing annexation areas but would need to fill the officer position if there were new annexations on the table.

"This is very irresponsible and a slap in the face to taxpayers because we promised them we'd roll back that tax rate if they supported the fire annexation -- we're obligated to roll that back," he said. If it's not rolled back, he said, it amounts to a 60 percent property tax increase. (This is based on using the roll back tax figure as the baseline, he said.)

Council had looked to revenue projections at the time they decided to do the rollback in order to help determine the 89-cent figure, but economic circumstances, such as those outlined by the state economic forecast, have changed greatly since then, said Reynolds in response to Ennis' accusation.

She further asked him whether Council passed a motion earlier in the year when discussing the promise to roll back the tax levy.

"It's irrelevant whether we passed a motion or not," he said. "All you want to do is revise history and say, 'Wait a minute. We didn't expect the tax revenue to go down that much. We want government to grow even more. So let's find a weird way to do it' and they're going to use the police department to do it."

Both Ennis and Councilman Sean Krebs asserted that if the police officer position had been so important for next year, Reynolds would have included it in her preliminary budget.

Reynolds presented her preliminary 2012 budget with the full 89 cents per $1,000 rollback last month that amounted to about $912,000 less in tax revenue for the city. She countered that the position wasn't included because it was a directive from Council to do the 89-cent rollback.

Since the budget was released, administration had been continuing to provide Council with more information about the rollback as well as scenarios in which it might consider a small rollback -- or none at all.

"Part of our job is to identify the merits of that idea (the 89-cent rollback)," City Administrator Mike Thomas told Patch last week. "We have a fiduciary responsibility to say, 'if you do that, here are the implications.'"

This prompted Councilman Rich Elfers to propose a motion to forego the 89-cent roll back. Following this scenario, Elfers argued, the police position could be filled, much needed street maintenance could be funded and the ailing general fund could be stabilized.

"These are core services, not frills," he told Patch earlier this week. "This is a golden opportunity to look to the future rather than just to next year. We can't let this opportunity to deal with core services slip though our fingers. Once the money is gone, it will be difficult if not impossible to get it back."

Based on information from Zoll and Finance Director Stephanie McKenzie, Elfers proposed that from the $912,000, about $130,000 could go to the police department, between $300,000 to $400,000 would go to streets, and about $370,000 could go towards stabilizing the general fund.

But all six fellow councilmembers opposed the motion.

All the while, the police department remains short-staffed. Zoll, Lt. Bob Huebler and Officer Chuck Hauswirth illustrated for Council why there is an urgent need to fill the officer position.

Thanks to several new land annexations this past year as well as a growing concern over budget reductions that Gov. Chris Gregoire is proposing -- particularly pertaining to public safety -- the department is concerned the changes might threaten the safety and well-being of citizens and police officers alike, said Zoll.

The department is experiencing increased calls for service and an increase in types of crimes that take officers out of the line of duty to complete reports and investigations, he said.

Annexations and rezonings provide development opportunities, he said. "Unfortunately, this also means that the number of domestic violence, property crimes, burglaries, larceny ... are up from 2009."

Hauswith, president of the Enumclaw Police Officers Association, said that the short staffing often forces the Enumclaw police often to seek assistance from nearby jurisdictions like Buckley police, King County Sheriff's Office and Washington State Patrol for back-up.

Krebs posited the possibility of putting forth an advisory vote to help support the department, but Ennis countered that it would require more than an advisory vote as to fund the position, taxes will need to be raised "more than what we're legally allowed to do."