In our view Feb. 24: Who Decides?

Hypothetically, should Yacolt voters get to vote on a library in Ridgefield when only Ridgefield taxpayers would pay for it and only Ridgefield residents would use it? Of course not.

This is why taxing entities create "subdistricts," to allow well-defined group of voters to decide if they alone will be taxed to pay for something that they alone would use. Critics call this gerrymandering, which it is not. Allowing people to decide their own taxes for their own services is pure democracy. Devotion to that concept sparked the American Revolution.

Creating subdistricts has succeeded and failed here in recent years. In 1998, 70 percent of voters in the Salmon Creek and Felida areas approved creating the Three Creeks library district, and more than 60 percent approved a tax increase of about $27 a year on a $150,000 home for 10 years to pay for it. The next year, a similar effort failed in Battle Ground. These decisions are neither good nor bad; they are what they are. Three Creeks voters said "Yes," Battle Ground voters said "No," and that's the way democracy works.

In 2004, voters approved creating another library subdistrict that would increase taxes by $20 a year on a $166,000 home. The results were new libraries to be built downtown and in Cascade Park.

In 2005, voters OK'd shrinking the C-Tran district (not the drawing of a subdistrict) from a countywide transit district to one that included about 82 percent of the county's voters. A sales-tax increase later was authorized by voters in the smaller district.

These efforts typically require "enabling legislation" in Olympia. This year, two bills in the Legislature would enable C-Tran to draw a subdistrict where voters could approve a tax increase (likely a small sales tax hike) to help fund operating expenses of a light-rail extension from Portland to Clark College. (Federal funding would pay for the bulk of construction). Craig Pridemore is leading the effort in the Senate, and Jim Moeller and Jim Jacks are spearheading the bill in the House, where the Committee on Transportation could act as early as today. Kudos to all three.

Light-rail critics have complained loudly — and correctly — that people should be allowed to vote on the matter. These bills would create precisely that, a chance for voters who would be directly served by light rail and who live where the sales tax would be increased — to decide. We can't think of a more fair way for transportation progress to transpire.

But as Kathie Durbin reported in Friday's Columbian, Republican state Reps. Jaime Herrera and Ed Orcutt are against this effort to draw a light-rail subdistrict. Although the change would not even occur in their District 18, they don't like the fact that their constituents would have to pay higher sales taxes when they visit or shop in the new subdistrict. The answer to that lament: Sales tax variations among municipalities here and elsewhere are common. And as stated, Yacolt voters don't get to vote on Ridgefield tax increases.

If Herrera and Orcutt were more open-minded, they would heartily support these two bills for one compelling reason: Their constituents essentially would be "subdistricted out" of higher local sales taxes for light rail. Light rail would be built nearby, just a few miles away, but taxes would increase only in Vancouver's core. What a deal for north county residents!

The principle is sound: Those who would directly receive a new service — and who would have to pay for it — would get to decide.