Thank you Mayor Fleetwood
Climate Action Fund proposal has been paused

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Last night the City of Bellingham issued a press release regarding the newly proposed Climate Action Fund levy originally scheduled to be on the ballot this November 2022. We value this prudent decision for a number of reasons. We would also like to thank our City Council members with whom I shared a number of conversations – those who were in support, those who were opposed, and those who were somewhere in between – all were willing to listen to the concerns from the business community. When we can listen to all rational views on an issue is when good governance is created. Cascadia Daily News posted about this last night as well.

I am not taking credit for this pause, but I would like to think we raised some important points. When this proposal comes up again, many of the points will still need to be addressed. In the meantime, it is important we continue to work on the housing crisis, workforce shortage, criminal justice issues and climate crisis. If you are interested, copied below is the letter we sent to the City Council and Mayor last week.

Thank you again, Mayor Seth Fleetwood.

-Guy Occhiogrosso
President/CEO
Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce

___________

Sent: Friday, June 17, 2022 2:22 PM
Subject: Climate Action Fund Resolution

Mayor and Council members,

When I first read proposed Climate Action Fund Resolution Draft, I had some substantial concerns. After listening to last week’s council committee meeting, it sounds like many of you have similar concerns.

Before launching into ‘all the reasons why,’ I do think it is important to acknowledge that climate change is a real outcome of many prior decisions and the responsibility of many to reverse. So much so that in the past the chamber has endorsed well written, good policies regarding climate change and incentives – in my tenure as far back as 2016, we were one of the few local organizations to endorse the solar incentive state legislation.

To Councilmember Hammill’s comments, this ballot will be full and there are some other tax proposals that feel like they have much more thought and accountability built into them. I fear this ballot initiative may sink some of those and prevent them from passing.

Overall, I just don’t think this initiative is ready. But with the intention of trying to be part of the solution and not just another detractor, here are some revisions to make it possibly more palatable at least for the business community:

-Bad Timing

As mentioned with the worst inflation in decades and a looming recession, now may not be the right time for this proposal. And again, I don’t feel the policy itself is ready. Perhaps work on it some more and bring back to a early 2023 special ballot.

-“Things not thoughts” specific spending plan

After 10 pages of whereas statements, I would have hoped for more clarity of spending. We need things, such as infrastructure and project investments, rather than more beaucracy and studies. I would suggest two specific things:

(1) Cap the administrative allowance at 5% for staffing. $300,000 (5% of $6M annually) should be sufficient for a department in addition to current funding for Seth Verdana’s position. And/or to the Mayor’s comment, pull funding from elsewhere to build that department. The City is asking our businesses and residents to make trade offs; the City could also.

(2) I would propose that at least 80% of the fund be spent on infrastructure/project costs to be installed within the City of Bellingham for residents/businesses and not for city buildings. The largest lift for families and businesses is the (often) large financial burden to start the process of transitioning to more environmentally friendly infrastructure. Use these funds to help them, not yourselves as a municipality.

-Residential versus Commercial Equity

This is a property tax, and it is often overlooked as to how much the businesses (and commercial building owners) pay into the property tax as compared to residential properties. I think it is important the expenditures of this fund reflect that balance. The business community is unfairly burdened with the tax load and collection by this and other taxes. Unfortunately the County Assessor is not able to provide the property tax percentage split between resident and commercial properties. The City’s finance department may have access to those numbers, or at least an educated idea of the distribution.  This proposal should mandate those infrastructure expenditures being at that same City of Bellingham collection percentage +/- 5%.

 

It is routinely mentioned that wages should be higher in the community, and while I agree I wish wages were higher, it is important to acknowledge that our largest employers are government, academia, and nonprofit. It is my fear this proposal will unintentionally hurt our small businesses that are still reeling from the pandemic and a lack of workforce all the while pushing out some of our other successful businesses that compete nationally or regionally (i.e. manufacturing, tech, professional services) especially in this increasing world of remote work.

This proposal with or without my suggestions will make it harder to do business in Bellingham. Council member Lilliquist mentioned needing tradeoffs in the meeting. If the Council is still wanting to pursue this proposal, it is my hope that you would consider giving up something to make the burden easier for the business community. I would suggest removing the local B&O tax within the City of Bellingham. I realize this is not probable and quite devastating to the City budget – my point here is we should be serious about tradeoffs. If we are just by ourselves in instituting this (versus Councilmembers Hammill’s suggestion this should be a state or national initiative), then unfortunately this effort will simply be a pebble sinking the bottom of the ocean (or the Bay). A tradeoff would make the weight a bit lighter.

I have had the pleasure to chat with some of you over the past week, and I would value the opportunity to chat with any of you. I am taking the rest of the day off and our office is closed on Monday in observance of Juneteenth. I would make time for you a priority if you wanted to chat next week in advance of the meeting on the 27th.

Thank you for reading my long response.