Talking to your Representative is pretty easy to do while attending a Townhall Meeting this past Saturday at the Inland Grange. Leonard Christian is a down to earth person and easy to talk to. Researching the Bills that they are doing in Olympia starts again in January, here is where we look up that stuff.

So many interesting things…

Squatting on vacant land has not been prevented by the County.

We talked about recent squatters on Bridges Rd were easily able to pose as owners on vacant land. The real landowners had to file suit and fight for a year to be able to evict them at their own costs. Our Representative assured that the land would not be able to be sold by a squatter because the Title search would stop the sale. It still seems wrong that a squatter is so easily able to forge signatures and transfer public County records to their name, though.

Governor Inslee has filed permits to build and then move into a new home complex at Hauser Lake  when he retires from Olympia.

Honestly, that is just too close for comfort for me! Hauser Lake current property owners can expect immediate raises in their tax assessment values, and I wonder if we will be able to use the lake after he parks there.

How about rent control for the elderly in manufactured homes?

Leonard does not believe that rent control is a good approach to bringing housing costs down. Instead more homes need to be built so that the costs can go down. The laws of supply and demand.

Ways to approach enforcement of debris removal

…on neighborhood junkyard properties was discussed. It is so good to talk about it but action is what is wanted. There are bosses that can be called for solutions when County offices don’t do their job.

The $8 fee for a “Ferry tax” is crazy for us on the East side of Washington.

Talk went on to all the costs going up, ie; gas, groceries, taxes are my own bothersome subject of real estate prices skyrocketing while we are struggling to rebuild our homes. Many of our neighbors have given up and moved, after the fire. I am in the middle of appealing a 45% tax assessment hike in land value for our property in the middle of a totally destroyed area off of Eistrup Rd. The beautiful trees are gone and so is all the privacy we used to have. It is now a place completely barren that looks like a war zone. He has served on the Board Of Equalization and knows a lot about how appeals work.

I wonder if our Representative can setup a way to teach a taxpayer to understand the reports the Assessor’s office send. Can he teach us how to go about the research needed for a successful appeal? It would be a positive step to empower the taxpayer so that we fully understanding the process, wouldn’t it?

I am still standing!

A citizen that is involved, knowledgeable and heard wears a smile.

Valerie Woelk