Washington state laws regarding the formation of Metropolitan Park districts

[Fun CH]

This law allows the Metropolitan Park District to purchase land in order to build and run an amusement park, give concerts, sell food and merchandise or build anything else they deem beneficial to the public. Loud music coming soon to an area near you.

And we pay for that with our property taxes and voters have zero say in what's built. This just underscores the enormous power that a Metropolitan Park District holds once established.

Disneyland anyone?

35.61.130

3) The board of park commissioners shall have power to improve, acquire, extend and maintain, open and lay out, parks, parkways, boulevards, avenues, aviation landings and playgrounds, within or without the park district, and to authorize, conduct and manage the letting of boats, or other amusement apparatus, the operation of bath houses, the purchase and sale of foodstuffs or other merchandise, the giving of vocal or instrumental concerts or other entertainments, the establishment and maintenance of aviation landings and playgrounds, and generally the management and conduct of such forms of recreation or business as it shall judge desirable or beneficial for the public, or for the production of revenue for expenditure for park purposes; and may pay out moneys for the maintenance and improvement of any such parks, parkways, boulevards, avenues, aviation landings and playgrounds as now exist, or may hereafter be acquired, within or without the limits of said city and for the purchase of lands within or without the limits of said city, whenever it deems the purchase to be for the benefit of the public and for the interest of the park district, and for the maintenance and improvement thereof and for all expenses incidental to its duties: PROVIDED, That all parks, boulevards, parkways, aviation landings and playgrounds shall be subject to the police regulations of the city within whose limits they lie."

[Fun CH]

This law allows a Metropolitan Park District to set the yearly property tax levy rate sufficient enough to pay the interest on the bonds and have a reserve fund to pay off the bonds.

For those that don't know what a bond is, "Borrowers issue bonds to raise money from investors willing to lend them money for a certain amount of time." --from the web

It ludacris to try to fool the voters into believing that our tax dollars won't be funding the construction of the Mega Spa as stated in the FOP letter to the MVN editor: Quote

"Mr Oulman implies that we are asking the public to foot the bill of building the pool. Not so! "

Who will be lending the MPD money and what interest rate will the tax payers owe every year to service an enormous millions of dollars loan debt that the FOP Metropolitan Park District will incur to build their dream Mega Spa?

If you were wealthy enough to loan the MPD money, that bond will be a great investment guaranteed by taxpayer money.

It boggles my mind how money flows from the poor to the wealthy as low income people help pay for someone else's dream.




35.65.210
"(4) The board must include in its general tax levy for each year a sufficient sum to pay the interest on all outstanding bonds and may include a sufficient amount to create a sinking fund for the redemption of all outstanding bonds. The levy must be certified to the proper county officials for collection the same as other general taxes and, for any metropolitan park district for which the county treasurer serves as the ex officio treasurer, when collected, the general tax must be placed in a separate fund in the office of the county treasurer to be known as the "metropolitan park district fund" and disbursed under RCW 36.29.010(1) and 39.58.750."

[pasayten]

Thank you Chris... Also affirmed during my meeting with FOTP Monday.

[Fun CH]

Chris, your community member mentioned

"they are proposing the 5 member board be composed of one member from each of the Twisp and Winthrop town councils, our local county commissioner (currently Andy Hover) and two at large members, one appointed by each of the Twisp and Winthrop town councils."

Where did he obtain this information? I could not find it on the existing FOTP website. I need the source.

Thanks... Ray

that information was in the Methow Valley News.

(35.61.050 section 2) Wa State law provides for board member candidates to be placed on the ballot along with the MPD creation proposition and are elected if the proposition is passed. The FOP apparently choose the option that eliminates voter input, no surprise there.

If the information in the MVN is accurate (quoted below), you can see that citizen voters are being completely eliminated from electing MPD board members.


https://methowvalleynews.com/2023/06/22 ... -district/

"The board would include one Twisp Town Council member, one Winthrop Town Council member, and the Okanogan County commissioner representing the Methow Valley. Two other at-large members who live within the Methow Valley School District boundaries would be appointed by the Twisp and Winthrop town councils. The towns and county would enter into an interlocal agreement for governance of the aquatics district."

[pasayten]

Chris, your community member mentioned

"they are proposing the 5 member board be composed of one member from each of the Twisp and Winthrop town councils, our local county commissioner (currently Andy Hover) and two at large members, one appointed by each of the Twisp and Winthrop town councils."

Where did he obtain this information? I could not find it on the existing FOTP website. I need the source.

Thanks... Ray

[Fun CH]

You want me to set up a blog post on the website for you to post/comment to?

Title: Thoughts from Chris
Desc: you make up a paragraph intro

Or just start commenting on some of the existing posts...

Thanks Ray, I'll have to think about that idea. Right now I'm focused on posting on your BB trying to show how much power Washington state law gives to a Metropolitan Park Recreational tax District.

Laws such as this one cited below where any MPD property tax assessment is considered to be a lien on your property.

RCW 35.61.240 Assessment lien—Collection.

"The assessment for local improvements authorized by this chapter shall become a lien in..."

I'll have to post the complete law latter as that site is giving an error message.

[pasayten]

You want me to set up a blog post on the website for you to post/comment to?

Title: Thoughts from Chris
Desc: you make up a paragraph intro

Or just start commenting on some of the existing posts...

[Fun CH]

Wa laws are posted intact under a button on the web site.

Questions of law will most likely need to be determined in the courts.

The law is the law, and once an MPD is formed, citizens have very little, perhaps no recourse in how the MPD functions.

This law below is pretty clear. If 25 (or 25% for a city) citizens of an area adjoining the park district what to join the MPD, they can petition the board and a vote is held whether or not that territory is annexed into the MPD. So a majority vote in an area that you live can be an annexed into an MPD and you will then be required to pay levy taxes. What If Brewster joins up and now we are paying taxes for their recreational projects.

"35.61.250. Territorial annexation -- Authority -- Petition

The territory adjoining a metropolitan park district may be annexed to and become a part thereof upon petition and an election held pursuant thereto. The petition shall define the territory proposed to be annexed and must be signed by twenty-five registered voters, resident within the territory proposed to be annexed, unless the territory is within the limits of another city when it must be signed by twenty percent of the registered voters residing within the territory proposed to be annexed. The petition must be addressed to the board of park commissioners requesting that the question be submitted to the legal voters of the territory proposed to be annexed, whether they will be annexed and become a part of the park district."

[pasayten]

Wa laws are posted intact under a button on the web site.

Questions of law will most likely need to be determined in the courts.

[Fun CH]

Note that ALL Wa. State Laws apply to the formation of a Metropolitan Park districts no matter how that is represented to the voters. For example if they say to the voters no eminent domain provision, the MPD board Commissioners can simply vote to overturn that provision because it's the law.

Please only post State Laws that pertain to Metropolitan Park districts with a short explanation of what the implication of that law is.

This law below allows the Metropolitan Park District commissioners to petition for properties near any MPD improvements to "any parkway, avenue, street, or boulevard" be assessed at a higher value. So higher taxes for those properties same as if you added an addition or Improvement to your home that has increased its value.


RCW 35.61.220
Petition for improvements on assessment plan.
If at any time any proposed improvement of any parkway, avenue, street, or boulevard is deemed by the board of metropolitan park commissioners to be a special benefit to the lands adjoining, contiguous, approximate to or in the neighborhood of the proposed improvement, which lie within the city, the board may so declare, describing the property to be benefited. Thereupon they may petition the city council to cause the improvement contemplated by the commissioners to be done and made on the local assessment plan, and the portion of the cost of the improvement as fixed by such assessment roll to be assessed against the said property so benefited in the same manner and under the same procedure as of other local improvements, and the remainder of the cost of such improvement to be paid out of the metropolitan park district fund.
The board of park commissioners shall designate the kind, manner and style of the improvement to be made, and may designate the time within which it shall be made.