‘Sufficient is sufficient!’
I’m voting “no” on Proposition 1. Is it as a result of I feel it’s the flawed resolution to our area’s psychological well being disaster? No. It seems to be a doable step in the precise path to assist handle this difficulty.
However, as soon as once more, property homeowners are appeared to because the perennial piggy financial institution to fund one other regional challenge. My property taxes went up 26% this 12 months alone. Sufficient is sufficient!
Gary Weimann, Sammamish
‘Assist determined individuals’
Though I don’t relish increased property taxes for my Seattle residence, I strongly help the creation of extra Disaster Care Facilities. A while in the past, a gorgeous younger man and pal of mine desperately tried to be admitted to psych wards at space hospitals, however they have been all full. He then left his household residence and walked to the Aurora Bridge (which at the moment didn’t have the added limitations to suicide). He jumped, and he immediately died.
We want extra care facilities to assist determined individuals like my pal.
Corliss Harmer, Seattle
Important, inadequate
As a health care provider specialised in major care and habit who has labored in downtown Seattle for the final 5 years, it sickens me that the most typical results of a profound psychological well being disaster is jail. The most typical situation includes ready till individuals harm themselves or others earlier than we act regardless of typically with the ability to predict an oncoming disaster.
Proposition 1 is way from good. Oftentimes, when persons are in an acute psychological well being disaster they aren’t conscious of it and resist any assist that’s supplied. At these instances, they’re typically harmful to themselves or others and want involuntary therapeutic detainment. Jail is the alternative of therapeutic and infrequently makes issues worse. The Proposition 1-proposed disaster facilities, as I perceive them, are primarily being designed for individuals who search care voluntarily. That is important and in addition grossly inadequate.
I’ll vote sure on Proposition 1, however I can even proceed to advocate vigorously for modifications to our involuntary detainment guidelines and methods that make involuntary therapeutic detainment a lot simpler to entry, and that crucially present care and companies for individuals and people who take care of them each earlier than and after an acute psychological well being disaster.
Nancy Connolly, MD, MPH, FACP, Seattle
‘Misguided’
We completely help funding behavioral well being and disaster facilities. That is important and essential for a thriving group! But attaching the funding to already hovering property taxes appears a brutally misguided path, one that may trigger additional hurt to quite a few “simply surviving” households. Sadly, we’ll be voting no to the much-needed funding, solely as a result of it’s connected to property taxes.
We inhabit a county with an abundance of rich people. There have to be different methods to gather the important $1.25 billion!
Kathy Guilbert, Bothell
High wages, humanistic strategy
Seattle and King County should reimagine group psychological well being that’s centered on the bottom ground. People are already doing direct group psychological well being work with out the existence of the brand new companies being proposed in Proposition 1.
I do know of businesses and people from a spectrum of entities doing wonderful group work based mostly on the person wants of the particular person in disaster. From mutual-aid efforts to nurses and different employees in ER departments, a makeshift system centered on hurt discount is already occurring in our group.
I’ll help this measure if there’s a precedence on paying employees high wages and offering in-depth coaching centered on a humanistic strategy. I really like Seattle and imagine in its energy to maintain its most weak people who find themselves struggling.
Marissa Hackett, Seattle
‘There must be a restrict’
I’ll vote “no.” That is one other of the unending property tax enhance proposals. There must be a restrict. I’m a moderate-income retiree and don’t qualify for any deduction. The continuous will increase are past purpose. It’s unfair to repeatedly put all these applications on the common house owner, significantly those that purchased properties a few years in the past and whose properties have elevated in worth, with tax will increase, far sooner than any earnings will increase.
This can be a wanted program, as are all which can be proposed to be supported by new levies. Once more, vote no. There’s all the time one other want that’s proposed as a property tax enhance.
It’s time to search out different sources of earnings. Maybe the Legislature has to face the laborious difficulty of arising with an equitable taxing system, e.g., earnings taxes with diminished property taxes.
We’ve essentially the most regressive tax system within the nation. Time for a change.
Glenn Cannon, Shoreline
‘A number of waste’
The reply from King County is continuously extra money for social welfare points fairly than re-evaluating the finances and the effectiveness of current applications. The county is spending many tens of millions of {dollars} on homelessness and psychological well being, and admittedly I simply don’t see the outcomes and I see a whole lot of waste.
For instance, the acquisition of the Crimson Lion in Renton is nothing wanting a boondoggle — KIRO 7 has reported that it sits empty and prices taxpayers $330,000 monthly. These in want of some of these applications deserve an impartial audit into their effectiveness and whether or not extra funding is really the precise reply.
In the meantime, in unincorporated King County, we’ve been instructed for years that the Roads Providers Division is chronically underfunded and that some roads might must shift to gravel as a result of they’ll’t afford to maintain them up. Nobody has mounted this and we’ve been given no alternative to vote on potential funding for this.
I can’t in good conscience help this levy, and I encourage others to intently have a look at this difficulty earlier than they vote. These in want deserve higher, as do all our residents in King County.
Michael Sullivan, Woodinville
‘Escalating math is unsustainable’
King County wants to search out shared funding fairly than lay the tax upon the house owner. As a senior house owner in Sammamish, I’ve absorbed a 74% enhance in my property taxes during the last seven years, and the escalating math is unsustainable for my household and others who discover themselves with ever-increasing property taxes.
We perceive the necessity for behavioral companies, however King County wants to search out further sources of income. King County states that it’s going to solely be a further $120 per 12 months for the median residence in King County, however we don’t reside in a King County median world. Most voters reside in Sammamish, Issaquah, Bellevue, Redmond and Seattle. Sure, we have now increased property values, however the fairness will not be spendable, and we have now few reasonably priced housing alternate options.
My second concern is the shortage of transparency by King County and the way it calculated its escalating price of $1.25 billion over 9 years; and to date, nobody from King County has shared their calculations. We don’t purchase a brand new car with out understanding our last price and we should always not vote for a levy with out understanding its last price.
John Robinson, Sammamish
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