The Port of Woodland’s three commissioners last week voted unanimously to reject a controversial pro-development tax plan known as tax increment financing, or TIF.
That plan — similar to ones implemented in Vancouver and Ridgefield — would have taken revenue from junior taxing districts like firefighting and EMS to instead give to the port for 25 years of job-creating development.
Commissioner Robert Wile said Thursday the port considered the plan after the Port of Vancouver enacted tax increment financing.
“They used a TIF to utilize and build their Vancouver waterfront down there, did a really nice job, this and that, and, as commissioners, we’re crazy not to look at different ways possible to fund different projects,” Wile said.
But before the vote, he said he would no longer consider the plan due to the district’s lack of outreach about the proposal.
“I am going to be 100 percent against this TIF because we did not communicate, educate, negotiate,” he said. “We instilled fear by waiting until the last minute to communicate with our taxing districts, and so therefore, I have zero trust, and I will definitely be a ‘no’ on voting for this resolution.”
Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue Chief John Nohr, whose district covers the city of Woodland, agreed with the decision.
“The commissioners of the Port of Woodland were listening to the community and their constituents and the concerns they have with taxing and financing and the impact it will have on the other taxing districts,” he said after the meeting.
What’s TIF?
Since TIFs were approved in Washington in 2021, the state has gained about two dozen of them, said Nick Popenuk, founder of public project consulting company Tiberius Solutions.
TIFs redirect some of a designated geographic area’s gradually increasing tax revenue to ports, cities and counties to spend on development.
That revenue ideally allows the area to make otherwise unattainable infrastructure investments that attract job-creating development, which then increases the area’s long-term revenue streams.
While they’re not a new tax, TIFs stand to indirectly increase local taxes to make up for gaps created by the money getting redirected from other junior taxing districts.
The port’s TIF would have been attached to an area west of the BNSF mainline that extends north from the Lewis River to near the top of Woodland city limits. It would have been mostly to the west of the city.
Over 25 years, Popenuk said the TIF area would generate about $37 million for infrastructure updates for transportation, freight and fiber optic internet and more.
The port envisioned development would cost $377 million; however, Popenuk emphasized one-tenth of that sum generated by the TIF would be “one source of local funding that could be used to leverage other sources, whether that’s private funds from the developers themselves, or state or federal grants.”
If the TIF had been approved before June, it would have started in 2026, with revenue generated gradually increasing. The proposed investments would have entirely remade the western half of Woodland, at the least.
A cold reception
Over the next half-hour of Thursday’s meeting, more than a dozen local fire department officials and taxpayers ripped into the proposal.
“You’re taking the money away from those specific taxing districts that voters approved, and you’re taking it without voter approval,” Cowlitz County Commissioner Steven Ferrell said. “That is specifically a violation of public trust — how you can sit and even talk about doing that without having some real personal struggles with your values, I don’t know.”
Others attacked the proposal for the tax increases it could have led to, as public safety districts like fire would have potentially served more people, attracted by the port’s new job development, but with less money.
“The money for this has to come from somewhere,” Nohr said in the meeting. “It’s a shift in the tax burden to the taxpayers, because the money that should be coming to us (would be) going to the TIF.”
Nohr, who emphasized he is pro-development overall, singled out Washington’s TIF laws in particular.
“Please reach out to your legislators,” he said. “(The law) needs guardrails. Get the law changed so that we’re all working together on the same page. Come back with it then, and let’s look at a plan then.”
Wile emphasized his desire to bring jobs to Woodland so people can raise a family without leaving the city. But, citing lack of outreach work early on, said he couldn’t support the plan.
After the meeting, Wile said he doesn’t foresee the port attempting to implement TIF again in the future.
