As current and former presidents of the Redmond City Council (your elected officials who review and approve the budget), we feel it is important to set the record straight on Redmond’s finances, especially in the context of recent specious claims to this paper.

Redmond’s current financial prudence has its roots in City Council fiscal policy developed in 2005, when the former mayoral administration proposed tax increases that were unsustainable and unsubstantiated by demonstrated community need. The council’s fiscal policy was embraced by now-Mayor John Marchione during his tenure as a council member. When he took office in 2008, Mayor Marchione took the leadership role in establishing our city’s current Budgeting by Priorities. This process requires the city to prioritize its funding on those services most important to residents. The priorities are verified with a community survey before every two-year budget, as is the overall community direction, with more than 70 percent of residents’ expressing optimism about the city’s direction earlier this year. Just as past council’s prudent fiscal actions have served Redmond well, so, too, did this new approach, which was cited as one of the reasons why S&P granted the city its first AAA bond rating in 2008.

The city’s challenge is to provide for community service priorities and to ask the community when additional resources are needed to meet those needs. While state law allows cities to increase property taxes 1 percent annually, when inflation outpaces that over time the city needs to again ask the community for funding, something Redmond has not done for basic services since 2007. The current administration has implemented efficiencies and cut staff before (50-plus staff in a recent biennium), and can do so again if the community does not consider funding these service levels a priority.

On capital projects, several letters have pitted recent city infrastructure investments against the proposed levies. In doing so, they have falsely represented that the city does not fund community priorities, which in fact have driven this administration’s budgets since 2008. The letters have also misrepresented both the funding and the scope of these projects. Unlike basic services, capital projects are also funded by developer contributions, business taxes, impact fees, state grants and other non-city funding. In several cases cited, the city’s contribution to these projects is only a fraction of the total cost. Many projects are also more complex than meets the eye. For example, the post office sidewalk project also includes six new federally-required Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-accessible pedestrian crossings, as well as three new rain gardens to protect our city aquifer/ground water/drinking water from road runoff. Again, the story is more complex than what was portrayed.

For those interested in how the city has delivered on the 2007 levy commitments, we encourage you to check out www.redmond.gov/Government/FinancesandBudget/levy. Better yet, talk to your neighbors whose 911 calls were responded to by north Redmond firefighters (Station 17), whose kids know our school resource officers, or who enjoy the clean and safe environment of our beautiful Redmond parks.

Lastly, please make sure to vote by mail by Aug. 4. And please take the time to review the facts on these important community priorities for yourself, rather than rely on the opinions of those who would rewrite the history that we have been honored to witness as your City Council presidents continuously since 1998.

Hank Margeson, Redmond City Council president, 2014-present

Pat Vache, Redmond City Council president, 1984-1987, 2012-2013

Richard Cole, Redmond City Council president, 2000-2003, 2010-2011

Nancy McCormick, Redmond City Council president, 1998-1999, 2004-2009