Don’t raise sales tax

Sales tax in most of Spokane County is about to increase from 8.7 percent to 9 percent, unless you vote “rejected” by April 28 on Spokane Transit Authority Proposition 1, the STA ballot measure. If you do not want our local sales tax to increase, then please vote and return your ballot today, so you don’t forget.

STA currently receives 0.6 cents of our sales tax, and wants to increase this to 0.9 cents, a 50 percent increase that would cost taxpayers as much as $300 million over 10 years.

Did you know that bus fares cover only about 17 percent of the costs of STA? We taxpayers pay the rest. Moreover, one of the projects, the $72 million controversial trolley, would raise operational costs even more because each trolley trip would be about $4.70 compared to the current trip average of $4.

We need our transit system. Not everyone can pay for a car and gas. But we just cannot afford increasing our sales tax to 9 percent. Further community discussions are necessary to rank priorities for transit improvements and establish more reasonable funding. Please exercise your right to vote and then vote “rejected” on STA Proposition 1.

Gretchen McDevitt

Spokane