Redmond council, public still debating public safety fee

A public safety fee has some Redmond residents on edge. According to the city, this $6 monthly fee would allow the city to hire six police officers and would appear on resident’s monthly utility bill.

According to the city, and police department, the workload of all the officers has increased due to the growth of the city.

The state average shows there are 1.65 officers per 1,000 residents, yet there are 1.3 officers per 1,000 residents in Redmond.

To hire six more, residents could potentially have to pay $72 a year.

Redmond resident Bill Dahl said Tuesday evening it’s an important issue for city residents. While he said he fully supports and is thankful for the police department, he thinks there are alternatives ways to fund hiring more officers.

There are ways to get revenue “other than the mayor and the council assessing fees, additional fees, which is very regressive to city residents because those fees impact the people the most who can afford it the least,” Dahl said. “We just need to get innovative and creative about identifying other sources of revenue that are available.”

For example, Dahl said the city could re-evaluate assets that are disposable and apply the money now used to finance those assets toward hiring more officers.

Dahl said the city needs to go back to the drawing board to find a better solution.

The city is hosting another town hall meeting on Monday, Jan. 22.

The city has not made any decisions on the fee yet. Data compiled from town hall meetings through early December show around 37 percent of residents do not support a fee.

City Manager Keith Witcosky said without a fee, there would be tradeoffs in other areas, such as road and park maintenance.

The city council faces three basic options: They could adopt the safety fee by ordinance, place it on an upcoming ballot or choose not to pursue the proposal.

“The public input, and what we’re hearing particularly in the negative, is the most important input we are getting,” Witcosky said. “And we didn’t start this initiative thinking we have a course, and a path, and an outcome in mind. We knew that we what we want to do is follow the public opinion. And if the public opinion is, ‘We want to have a say on this,’ then I expect that is what’s going to be followed.”

Witcosky said the city staff and council are listening to the public. He said the proposal places the fee on a monthly utility bill because then there’s no overhead cost. However, it could be sent out in a separate monthly or yearly bill, or a tax hike could be imposed.

The council has to make a decision by Feb. 13 if they want to place a measure on the May primary election ballot.