Roskelley tax break OK’d for open space

Spokane County commissioners grudgingly approved this week a large tax break to one of their biggest critics, former county Commissioner John Roskelley.

Roskelley and his wife, Joyce Roskelley, applied to the county to have their 20-acre parcel southwest of Mount Spokane designated as open space under a state law that gives tax benefits for preserving natural resources or maintaining land for agriculture or timber production.

The Roskelley parcel is valued at $119,050. The county’s action will mean they will just be taxed on about $2,000 of that value, said Cami Dole, the county’s current-use specialist. Any structure they build on the land will be taxed at full price.

The former two-term Democratic county commissioner has been a vocal critic of the current Republican-controlled commission’s fiscal management and was active in Bonnie Mager’s successful campaign to unseat Phil Harris.

Commissioner Mark Richard said it was “blatant hypocrisy” for Roskelley to criticize the current commission’s budget “while he has an application in for a tax break at the expense of the taxpayers.”

He noted that Roskelley earns $90,000 a year as a member of the Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board.

“It’s borderline elitism,” Richard said.

Roskelley said he bought the land to protect it and has offered to sell it to the county parks department for the same price he purchased it for in 2005.

“It is a big component in protecting the wildlife habitat and nesting grounds for a large number of birds, and for Richard to translate that into hypocrisy seems disingenuous,” Roskelley said. Part of Roskelley’s land had been farmed; about half is part of a wetland. Roskelley said they are considering building a home on a small piece of the land while maintaining the rest as open space. They have agreed to plant native vegetation on the farmland and allow access to the property to the Audubon Society, college and school ecology classes and other groups.

With the new tax designation, if the Roskelleys or any future landowner decides to do something else with the land, they will have to pay seven years’ worth of taxes that weren’t paid because of the designation, plus a 20 percent penalty.

Bill Moser, a Spokane County senior planner, said the Roskelleys’ land is an excellent example of a property that qualifies for the program. That’s in part because it borders the Feryn Ranch Conservation Area, which is 168 acres preserved by the county in conjunction with Ducks Unlimited. Some of the Feryn Ranch wetland extends onto the Roskelleys’ property. Deadman Creek also flows through the land.

“Aside from Turnbull, this might be the largest wetland in Spokane County,” Moser said.

Under the state’s open space tax law, property owners can apply to the county to receive large reductions in their taxable property value, but owners must meet several criteria.

Most of the 12,000 parcels that have qualified in Spokane County are used for farming or timber production. Another 9,000 parcels also receive tax benefits by being designated as forest land, including many owned by Inland Empire Paper, which is owned by the Cowles Co., the same company that owns The Spokesman-Review.

Only 35 properties are designated as open space like the Roskelleys’ land.

Richard said he likely scrutinized the application more because Roskelley’s name appeared, but said he would have made the same decision no matter who requested the tax change. At Tuesday’s meeting Harris asked folks to stop referring to the Roskelleys when discussing the property.

“My feeling is that the Roskelleys have the same right as anybody else to apply for that exemption,” Harris said. “Just because somebody beats up on me doesn’t mean I’m going to try to get even.”