Tim Eyman's Car Tab Initiative Will Hurt Communities Across the State

Can someone please buy this guy a new shirt? Heidi Groover

Perhaps no one's a better example of the adage that one person really can make a difference in the world than Tim Eyman, the compulsive initiative pusher and perennial shiv in the side of Washington state.

Eyman’s latest’s venture, Initiative-976, would institute a flat $30 fee for car tabs in the state. You’d pay the same fee for a 1997 Corolla as you would a $300,000 Lamborghini Spyder. And the negative repercussions of this passing would be felt all across Washington state.

In Spokane, the passage of I-976 would defund road improvement projects, including major reconstruction and the construction of sidewalks around schools and in neighborhoods. The city estimates that this defunding would cost Spokane $2.3 billion by 2025, and this would be so detrimental to the city that the City Council is considered issuing a resolution against it.

At a Spokane City Council meeting this week, Eyman, wearing his signature long-sleeved t-shirt stamped with a political slogan, pitched a fit about this potential resolution. But if Eyman wants to complain to every local government opposing his initiative, he’ll have some traveling to do. In Vancouver, the City Council also voted to oppose Eyman’s pet project, which would cost the city half of its annual street funding budget. According to the Columbian, this would result in cuts to pavement preservation, lighting, sign replacement, bike and pedestrian projects, and neighborhood safety projects. “The city of Vancouver has a lot to lose, and this is definitely something we want to have a voice on,” Mayor Pro Tem Bart Hansen told the paper.

Commissioners in Kitsap and Mason County even wrote an open letter directly to voters asking them to reject this plan. “What’s the number one thing that we all experience, whether in our own car, on a bus or walking?” they wrote. “It’s our roadways and public infrastructure. If you like that new smooth surface on Highway 3, or are hoping for relief to congestion in your community or along a highway, or greater ferry reliability, that could be in jeopardy.”

Improvement projects in at least 100 communities in Washington state would be decimated if Tim Eyman gets his way on this.

In Bremerton, according to Mayor Greg Wheeler, it would cost the city between $400,000 and $600,000 annually, and improvements to neighborhood streets and sidewalks would be at risk. It would also cut $48 million in funding for upgrades to the Bremerton ferry terminal.

“I would find other efficiencies to make it through the year,” Mayor Wheeler said, adding that if this does happen, he may ask the Bremerton City Council to look into a sales tax to make up for the loss of revenue.

It would also hit the ferry system, eliminating $1.3 billion in vessel improvements including $188 million for a new state ferry.

Washington residents have seen this before, when Eyman managed to get a $30 car tab initiative passed in 1999. As the San Juan County Ferry Advisory Committee noted in a guest editorial in the San Juan Journal: “The repercussions of Eyman’s I-695 20 years ago should not be forgotten: Ferry fares nearly doubled over the following few years, and new vessel construction was shut down for the following decade. Ferry construction was funded by the vehicle excise tax, which was never replaced. There is still no capital funding program to replace aging ferries, each one requires an act of the Legislature and a patchwork of funding including a ticket surcharge. We see the continuing impact of I-695 every time we ride a ferry and if I-976 passes it will only get worse.”

This initiative would be bad both for big cities like Seattle, where the initiative would cost Sound Transit $20 billion in funding, and rural areas like Garfield County, where it would completely eliminate local transit agencies. It would also hurt the State Patrol and Amtrak. And it would end highway improvements and upgrades to roads and bridges. It would impact business, labor, and everyone who lives in or travels through Washington state.

And yet, somehow, Eyman—a man who was sued by the state for taking $300,000 in kickbacks and has been banned from a Home Depot in Lacey for stealing a swivel chair—has his supporters.

Not many, mind you: Google “Yes on I-976” and every op-ed has been written by Tim Eyman. But there were enough to get this initiative on the ballot. What these supporters might not get is that if this thing passes, local governments will have to make up this funding somehow, be it in higher taxes, tolls, or bills. Or some towns and cities may forgo infrastructure projects altogether, and buses will be canceled, potholes will go unfixed, and traffic will get even worse than it already is.

We’ll pay for it one way or another, all because Tim Eyman wanted $30 car tab fees.