Whatcom County Jail sales tax up in the air

Voters were almost evenly divided on whether to increase the local sales tax to pay for a new Whatcom County Jail, making it too close to call Tuesday night, Nov. 3.

According to early counts released at 8:14 p.m. Tuesday, 51 percent of voters had approved the measure, while 49 percent had rejected it. Only 579 of 38,823 votes for that measure separated the two totals.

If the 0.2 percent sales tax increase is approved, shoppers in Whatcom County would pay an extra 20 cents for every $100 they spend starting next year, with half the tax expiring after 30 years.

As of Tuesday night, the Whatcom County Auditor’s office had counted 40,518 ballots, representing 31 percent of the county’s 129,208 registered voters.

The Auditor’s Office received only 37 ballots in the mail Tuesday, and expected to get a significant number in the mail on Wednesday. Diana Bradrick, the chief deputy auditor, said they would not be able to process all of those ballots until Thursday.

The next vote tally was scheduled to take place by 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. The election will be certified on Nov. 24.

People in favor of and opposed to the sales tax increase both felt good about their chances after seeing the results Tuesday night.

Doug Starcher, a jail sales tax opponent and co-author of the con statement in the voter’s guide, said the narrow margin made him feel pretty confident the measure would fail.

“I’d be happier with a bigger margin, but I’m still pretty comfortable,” Starcher said. “There was a strong get-out-the-vote effort. ... Driving by and looking at the ballot drop box by the courthouse, there was a lineup often around the block.”

Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo said he thought the counts showed an encouraging trend.

“We will have to wait and see the final results,” Elfo said. “I’m optimistic. We worked hard to make the community aware of what this need is, and I’m optimistic that we’re going to see the trend in favor of the jail continue here over the next couple of days.”

Whatcom County Executive Jack Louws, who spearheaded the current plan to replace the 1984-built downtown jail, said they would know what comes next in a couple of weeks.

“We’ll just need to let the rest of the ballots come in,” Louws said.

Louws has coordinated negotiations over an agreement to pay for and operate the jail among the Whatcom County Council, six small cities and the city of Bellingham.

The agreement spells out how the revenue from the sales tax increase would be split among the cities and the county in order for the county to be able to pay the yearly bonds for the project. The six small cities have signed the deal, while as of Election Day, Bellingham still had not.

Bellingham City Council and Louws had not yet successfully negotiated changes that Bellingham requested. Some of the changes the city asked for include adjusting how the revenue from an existing 2004 jail sales tax is shared, reducing the size of the proposed jail, and ensuring jail alternatives and prevention programs will be paid for.

The negotiations could continue no matter the final election results, though Louws said if the measure does not pass “we’re going to sit back and assess the situation, wait a period of a couple of years and see what opportunities we have at that time.”

If the tax passes, the county could move forward with building a roughly 400-bed jail with the six small cities, rather than the originally proposed 521-bed jail that would include Bellingham. If the county were to build a smaller jail, Bellingham still could hold inmates there on a space-available basis but might have to contract with other jails in the state if there isn’t enough room.

The city already has started exploring its options for if and when that day comes, as Sheriff Elfo has said that he will take immediate steps to reduce the jail population regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s election.

Elfo said he planned to meet with Bellingham public safety officials on Thursday, Nov. 5, to talk about what options the city might have once its current jail contract expires at the end of December.

“I’m also the sheriff of people in Bellingham. I want to make sure public safety is not impaired in any manner,” Elfo said. “We don’t want to leave an officer hanging at 2 in the morning. If they have a DUI or a domestic violence offense, we want them to be able to book those people into jail and make an orderly transition to another facility.”

Bellingham Police Guild president April Mitchelson opposed the sales tax and co-wrote an editorial to that effect for the guild — the labor union that represents all commissioned officers of the Bellingham Police Department up to the rank of sergeant.

After hearing the early results Tuesday night, Mitchelson reiterated that the union is very much in favor of a new jail but was concerned about using the sales tax to pay for it.

“We want a safer jail, a bigger jail, and a newer jail,” she said. “We are just concerned with the source of funding, especially with the way the tax was handled from 2004.”

If passed, the sales tax increase would max out the public safety taxing capacity for the cities and county under that portion of state law, which could limit the ability to leverage that money for other expenses if the cities have agreed to put that money toward a new jail.

“There are just concerns about having all of the tax dollars used up for such a long period of time for such a specific issue when we don’t know what our needs may be and what may come up as society changes,” Mitchelson said. “We don’t know what changes there will be in technology, in different investigative resources, our ambulance and fire departments. There’s a lot of unknowns in public safety and you want to be able to fund them if you need to.”

Elfo said he was glad to see that Louws, who won his re-election bid with 71 percent of the vote, would remain in his leadership position to continue working on the jail issue.

“I’m sure he’ll make sure every penny of this jail sales tax is spent properly if the voters in fact approved this,” Elfo said.

This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 10:21 PM with the headline "Whatcom County Jail sales tax up in the air."