July 11 Draft Ferry Task Force Recommendations

                Please use the July 20 updated recommendations instead of the July 11th ones below. Here are the Ferry Task Force’s draft recommendations as of their July 11, 2011 meeting, in pdf format.  Items still remaining to be agreed upon should be determined at the July 18th meeting [...]

Task Force DRAFT cost-cutting / revenue ideas

Here’s a draft of ferry cost-cutting and revenue-generating options that the Task Force is considering recommending to the County Council (spreadsheet, MS Excel or OpenOfficeCalc).   PDF Version of recommendation-costs20110611-p-draft At the June 13 Task force meeting (Grange, 6- ~830 PM), the focus will be on the cost-cutting measures since revenue and other issues have [...]

Taxing Districts and Generating More Revenue

After the May 2, 2011 Ferry Task Force meeting, Bill Lee submitted these thoughts and questions about ferry-related taxes and about fare increases and revenue-generation.  ********************************** What follows are some thoughts about two of the issues discussed at the Lummi Island Ferry Task Force meeting on 5/2/11. FERRY RELATED TAXES While this topic is scheduled to [...]

What Do We Value About Our Community?

from Colleen McCrory…. The Citizens’ Task Force for the Lummi Island Ferry will be making recommendations to the Whatcom County Council that most likely will effect every aspect of the ferry operation.  For many of us, attending meetings, keeping up with issues and information, and expressing our opinions to the task force is not in [...]

Ferry Task Force Agenda April 25, 2011

Citizens’ Task Force for the Lummi Island Ferry Meeting Monday, April 25, 2011, 6 pm Whatcom Educational Credit Union 5659 Barrett Road, Ferndale AGENDA   Roll call Approval of Minutes Public Comments Introduce Geoff Beaumont, former Terminal Manager at BC Ferries Tsawwassen Terminal.Discussion of BC Ferries governance, operations, share of expenses covered by passenger fares. [...]

Updated Information on Ferry Taxing Districts

Betsy Schneider has been involved in researching state law governing county-owned ferries, and the use of taxing districts to help pay for them, since the beginning of the year.  She recently provided the Whatcom County Ferry Task Force with the attached updated article, which discusses the complicated laws governing special purpose districts. Ferry Taxing Dist-updated [...]

More on Taxing Districts and Car Ferries

In an effort to clarify the law concerning the County’s ability to use a ferry taxing district to finance a new car ferry, Betsy Schneider has pursued this question.  It will be interesting to see what the county’s legal staff has to say.  (See our previous post on this issue: Ferry Taxing Districts Okay for [...]

County says Ferry Taxing Districts ok for car ferries, too?

For update with RCW 2007 code, please read Betsy’s later response to Barbara’s email. Barbara Brenner just emailed this to the Ferry Forum, citing 2006 code (RCW) that allowed ferry taxing districts to cover passenger-only or car ferries: —– Original Message —– From: To: BBGUN1010@aol.com Sent: 1/14/2011 1:00:25 PM Subject: Fwd: Ferry Taxing District Question [...]

Watch: County Council discusses a ferry taxing district

Many thanks to Latte Republic, who with the assistance of County Council staff, videotaped the County Council “Committee of the the Whole” discussion on January 11, 2011, about a possible ferry taxing district.  The discussion is published in segments Youtube. Here’s the link. Sounds like the only other county ferry taxing district (in King County) [...]

Lummi Island’s Assessed Tax Value: A Summary

Note:  Tip Johnson emailed the Whatcom County Assessor, Keith Wilnauer, requesting information on Lummi Island’s total assessed tax valuation.  The following is their communication, as well as the island’s tax valuation summary report: >>> Tip Johnson <tip@skookum.us> 1/10/2011 11:25 AM >>> Hi Keith, What is the aggregate valuation of taxable property on Lummi Island?  Consideration [...]