I- 1033 before the City

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Story Published: Sep 1, 2009 at 11:23 PM PDT

By Stacy Lilienthal

I- 1033 went before the city of Yakima Tuesday night.

This November, we'll grab our ballots to vote for or against it. If passed, a city, county, and state budget has to grow at the same rate as the private sector. If a government needs more money, the public needs to vote to give them more. If they take too much, residents will get a reduced property tax the following year.

The city fielded questions from the public but decided not to make a group vote on what they think of the initiative. City Manager Dick Zais said so much of their budget is mandated, the initiative could just jeopardize city jobs.

Bill Lover said this would force government to live within its means. "My suggestion to all the voters are to read this initiative; read the pros and cons from both sides and make a determination."

The city did promise residents they would calculate out the impact of the property tax initiative on the city.

The county discussed the initiative earlier in the day. To show how much money they would lose if it passed, they broke the numbers down. Since 2002, they could have been out almost 15 million dollars. That's a tough hit when you consider 80-percent of the budget goes to law enforcement. That would be an 11 to 12 million dollar hit to our crime fighting efforts.

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