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I-695 -- Harrah Stands to Lose More Than Just Money
I-695 -- Harrah Stands to Lose More Than Just Money
Published in the Herald-Republic on Sunday, October 17, 1999
By MIKE BARENTI
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
HARRAH -- The town of Harrah comes almost as a surprise to someone driving
past the orchards and hay meadows along Branch Road.
There's an intersection with four-way stop signs, a store, cafe, a couple of
taverns, a school and a handful of other shops and businesses. Houses are clustered
off Branch and Harrah roads, but with just 550 residents there aren't too many.
It all means this town, located west of Toppenish and surrounded by the Yakama
Nation Reservation, can't generate much tax revenue to provide services towns
and cities provide.
Instead, most funding comes from the state in the form of sales tax equalization,
Mayor Barbara Harrer said.
If Initiative 695 passes next month, some fear that money will dry up.
The Washington Association of Cities has told Harrer that the town stands to
lose $37,000 in state money the first year, $50,000 the next and, finally, $60,000
a year.
"I think they're quite accurate," she said of the estimates.
That's left town leaders pondering what Harrah will look like if the measure
passes.
State money pays the $33,000 for the town's contract with the Yakima County
Sheriff's Office to provide police protection, Harrer said. Another $18,000
goes to Yakima Fire District No. 5.
That's about equal to the money the town brings in from property taxes, she
said.
The town council has a plan. With just one full-time and one part-time employee,
there isn't much staff to cut.
Instead, the town would eliminate as many services as possible and use money
in a bank account earmarked for emergency purchases to make up for lost state
money, Harrer said.
Some 60 percent of the property tax dollars pay for street upkeep, so road
work would be put off. The town would change its contract with the sheriff's
office, Harrer said. "We'd have very limited law enforcement."
The plan would allow the town to remain incorporated for about a year, Harrer
said. If the Legislature can't find a way to help small towns, Harrah would
look seriously at disincorporating, she said.
"I feel the state will have to come up with money somewhere," Councilman Larry
Garcia said. If the worst happens, and the town disincorporates, it will change,
he said.
Right now, Harrah is a community, Garcia said. "People really pull together."
The people will still be there even if the town isn't officially a town. Still,
it won't be quite the same.
The town government helps organize things like Harrah's annual festival, Garcia
said. There's no telling if that will continue.
"(Initiative) 695 will have a ripple effect," he said.
