PORT ANGELES – Clallam County commissioner will vote next week on a re-worked plan to add a property tax for preserving farmland.
Commissioners agreed to move the measure forward after changing some of the language in the original plan. Specifically, the Conservation Futures Fund will be used for exclusively preserving agricultural lands. Speakers at a public hearing last week told commissioners they didn’t like the original, broader language that allowed the funds to be used for other types of open spaces as well.
Commissioner Mark Ozias says he’d prefer the broader language but will support the changes.
To me, it really makes good sense to, you know, to maintain the broad language in here, but I think if we’re going to honor what we’ve heard from all of the outreach that’s been done. There are definitely folks in the environmental restoration community and others who are certainly advocating that we can maintain this more broader focus, but the vast majority of outreach that we’ve done has indicated that there’s a lot of support for farmland only.
Commissioner Bill Peach says in favor of supporting preservation of farmlands, but he has issues with adding another tax on county property owners.
I can tell you that I don’t support increased taxes, but a lot of messages that I have received , the very predominant theme is stick to the knitting, stay with farms.
The tax will add a two and three-quarter cents tax on every 1,000 of assessed valuation. It will cost a 200-thousand-dollar property about 7 dollars a year and bring in about $250,000 a year total. Supporters say that money could be sued to leverage other grant funding to buy conservation rights on farmlands, keeping those lands in working farm status and not development.