To the editor:

When I read in Saturday’s issue of the Record that Dave Anderson said: “If you gave them (the voters) a college test on it, they’d all flunk it,” I was a bit offended. It reeks of elitism. While I know the Record sometimes has difficulty with accurate quotes, if this statement is accurate, I feel compelled to respond.

While I would agree that most citizens are not experts at tax law, I do believe we have a rather intelligent population. Proposition 1 involves trading sales tax revenue for property tax revenue. Since our economy is currently weak, fewer purchases have been made in Island County. That results in lower revenue from sales taxes.

Rather than focusing on how to improve our local economy and hence sales tax revenue, our county commissioners have chosen to focus on a property tax increase to cover their current level of service. Depending on the actual wording of the proposition, this property tax measure may not be subjected to the 1-percent annual increase limitation. When our economy is once again strong, and property values actually increase, the county will increase its property tax revenue by the same rate, on top of increased sales tax revenue.

Bottom line: In 10 years, if you vote yes and it passes, you could pay Island County twice as much as you do now for property taxes, versus just 10 percent more by voting no and having it fail.

We need to focus on ways to help our businesses increase their sales so the sales tax revenue can recover.

Geoff Tapert

Langley