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Letter: Disproportionate slice feeds C-Tran

The Columbian
Published: March 5, 2015, 12:00am

For every $100 Clark County citizens spend, they pay $8.40 in sales taxes, which are distributed as follows:

• State of Washington gets $6.50.

• Cities get 85 cents.

• Clark County gets 15 cents.

• Law and justice gets 10 cents.

• Mental health (county) gets 10 cents.

• C-Tran gets 70 cents.

Cities provide police, fire, EMS, roads, sidewalks, lighting. (They also get funds from property and utility taxes.) C-Tran transports a small percentage of citizens.

Three years ago voters approved C-Tran’s .002 cent tax increase request for “essential bus service,” a 40 percent increase. That’s 20 cents on the $100 purchase, raising C-Tran taxes to 70 cents.

Yet last summer, C-Tran spent $6.7 million on Bus Rapid Transit without giving citizens a promised vote. Last fall, C-Tran chose to pay TriMet $1.7 million, plus $552,000 per year service fee, for an electronic fare-collection system. This equals 7 percent of passenger fares. There are “no identified savings.”

Furthermore, passenger revenues only cover about 20 percent of C-Tran costs — taxpayers pay the balance.

Would citizens prefer giving some of C-Tran’s 70 cents to their city for better services? I’ll bet the overwhelming answer is “yes.” The cities of Battle Ground, Ridgefield, La Center, Yacolt, Washougal, Camas, and Vancouver need that money more than C-Tran.

John Ley

Camas

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