The Clark County council will vote next week whether to pursue early steps in Councilor David Madore’s latest proposal: to expand C-Tran’s boundaries to cover all of Clark County.
At board time Wednesday, the council voted 2-1 to add Madore’s proposed resolution to Tuesday’s regular council meeting agenda. Councilor Jeanne Stewart cast the dissenting vote.
Madore’s resolution, which he unveiled on his Facebook page late Monday night, proposes the county convene a public transportation improvement conference in October to evaluate changing C-Tran’s service and taxing boundary.
“Many county citizens have been stripped of their ability to vote on C-Tran Sale Tax (sic) increases and excluded from public transit service even though they pay the C-Tran sales tax in the urban centers,” Madore wrote Monday.
C-Tran’s boundary covers the city of Vancouver and its urban growth boundary, as well as the incorporated areas of Camas, Washougal, Battle Ground, Ridgefield, La Center and Yacolt.
C-Tran spokesman Scott Patterson said the district, which was approved during a public transportation conference in 2005, covers about 80 percent of Clark County’s residents.
In 1999, Washington voters approved an initiative that repealed the motor vehicle excise tax, which once covered 40 percent of C-Tran’s operating expenses.
C-Tran cut service the following year and began spending its reserves. When C-Tran asked Clark County voters for a sales tax increase in 2004, they rejected it. In 2005, C-Tran convened a public transportation conference in which it reduced its taxing district and service area to the smaller boundary it covers today.
No legal challenges
Voters within the new boundary approved a sales tax increase the same year. Voters also approved a C-Tran sales tax increase in 2011.
Each municipality opted in during the transit agency’s reorganization in 2005.
Madore’s resolution states that the district was shrunk to “assure passage of future tax increases,” and that the “gerrymandering” of the districts has “disenfranchised” rural residents who may need to access C-Tran buses from voting on taxes.
“This is a real need,” Madore said. “There are real citizens out there who are not being served.”
Patterson, however, denied there was any malicious attempt to punish rural voters in 2005.
“C-Tran was very deliberate in the process it went through and the record supports that,” Patterson said. “Nobody challenged it legally at the time. Nobody has raised any legal challenges.”
Councilor Tom Mielke supported Madore’s resolution, saying he’s frustrated as a rural resident that he’s paying taxes that support C-Tran every time he drives into city limits to go shopping.
“It’s like taxation without representation,” Mielke said.
Chris Horne, the county’s chief civil deputy prosecutor, pointed out that it’s not unusual for people to pay the sales taxes of a jurisdiction they visit but don’t live in.
“That’s true of Oregonians who come over here and go to a restaurant,” Horne said.
Stewart, meanwhile, questioned the intent behind the resolution, saying a transportation conference is likely to cause “community turmoil.”
“Is it worth going to war, and what will we get out of it in the end?” she said.
If the councilors approve Madore’s resolution on Tuesday, it schedules the transportation conference for Oct. 27 at the Vancouver Community Library. In addition to the three councilors, each of Clark County’s cities and the town of Yacolt can appoint a representative to serve at that conference.
Columbian reporter Eric Florip contributed to this story.
