Lower Ocean Shores Taxes or L.O.S.T.

An Update for 5-10-2012. The upcoming second library levy.

Links to these new pages and future articles are listed at the bottom of this web page. Check often for more upcoming changes.

Our city of Ocean Shores is making one more attempt to get into our pocketbooks with this second library ballot, because the first one was defeated. This second attempt will cost the city approximately $8,000-money they don't have, because they are already operating at deficit spending.

Prior to 2010, the Library always came out of the general fund. They are now on their own levy, and where did the money go that used to fund the library? If you have read recent articles in the North Coast News, you will see it went entirely to employee wage increases. If we allow this to continue, by authorizing them more and more money with levy increases, they will never realize that this never ending spiral has to stop. The only way to send the city this message is to vote NO on these levies to give them the message that we just can't afford this any longer.

We are now doing research on this new library levy and the library itself, and starting about June 15th we will be releasing the results of this research. The following information was presented on our initial study of city finances and the numbers are still valid and do truly represent the financial burden for equivalent services our city has for comparable services other cities in the county have.

Here are the average taxes paid per city in the county and the county average for all cities minus Ocean Shores. This chart is based on 2012 tax data from the County Assessor.

City Population 2012 total $ per % lower than
Name 2010 census Tax $ Resident Ocean Shores
Aberdeen16,896$2,922,629$172.98529%
Cosmopolis1649 $538,580$326.61280%
Elma3107 $596,350$191.93477%
Hoquiam8726$1,740,214$199.43459%
McCleary3225$240,840$74.681225%
Montesano3976 $697,109$175.33528%
Oakville684 $80,673$117.94775%
Westport2917 $880,201$301.74303%
Ocean Shores5569$5,095,233$914.93-
Whole County-OS41,180 $7,696,596$186.90489%

As shown above, we pay more city taxes for comparable services, per resident, than any city in the county, by an average of 489%. The supporters of this levy will say that we have to pay more per person because of the tourist load, but when you think logically, other than the Fourth of July (one weekend a year) is there ever even close to 15,000 or more people in this city at any one time? They have used this argument for years to justify these ridiculously high taxes. Common sense dictates their argument does not hold any credence. They want you to believe that when the tourists and weekenders come to town, that they are here to terrorize our community and that we need all this extra protection. The truth is that they are decent, hard working people that are here for a couple days and are gone, causing us little to no trouble. Our whole problem is too many overpaid employees. Until we give the city some incentive to do something, like chopping down their money tree, they will never listen.

Many suggestions have been given to them to lower the budget and they have ignored them. They have found that it is easier to propose a tax increase than to actually do the task of lowering the budget.

Every year since 2007, even with the increased taxes, they have borrowed millions from your utility bill payments to balance the budgets. Our base city taxes alone have increased by around $1 million or 42%, from 2008-2012. Did you see any improvement in city services?

The only way to stop this never ending spiral of increased taxes is at the ballot box. If we do not say NO to these levy increases, the city will grow even more to resemble an overfed pet. The more you feed it, the fatter and lazier it will become.

Click here to see the complete 2012 wage and benefit analysis

Click here to see why your taxes in 2012 may have gone up even though your assessment went down

Click here to view lists of citizen budget reduction recommendations and revenue producing ideas ignored by council

Please call or email me for any questions concerning this website Al Lizakowski, 361-949-9258, email ajlizard1@msn.com