Forests_green_space

6:19 to support the services that people actually demand. And that's my main point. People expect good roads, safe communities, and reliable services. The conversation shouldn't just be about taxes. It should be about the value and accountability. Taxpayers deserve to know where their money goes and what they're getting in return. - Thank you. Candidate Young. - So this was-- - I'll read it again. The county has increased sales taxes twice this year without voter approval. It also can raise property taxes annually. What is your position on tax increases? - They are challenging. There's no question about it. Everybody in our community is feeling the pain of the economy, and extra additional taxes are difficult to handle, quite frankly. But really what it comes down to, my job as a county counselor is to understand what level of service our citizens expect from our county government,

7:17 and to base those decisions on that. So what does our citizen require in terms of parks? What do they envision, that being our roads? How well maintained should they be? That is my role, is to understand what the community desires of the county, and to make sure that that happens. Sometimes that involves looking at tax increases, or fee increases that are able to be done by the council alone. And often that means going to the voters, and establishing to them the importance, and this is why I view that my view is so important that we fund this particular thing, and then you ask the voter at that point. - Thank you. Candidate Shull. - Hi. The plain truth is that governments don't create wealth. They only extract it, and I think that our state and our county and our city have a real revenue, spending problem, not a revenue problem. As a small business owner, I know firsthand

8:17 how mismanagement can crush the small businesses. I think that, I'm gonna come from a tax blast approach. I think that I do approve of making the super majority requirement for increasing taxes. I do believe that we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. I know the budgets in the county are very tight, but I do believe that how governments operate and how we view the taxpayers has been mismanaged, and I would like to make some changes in that. - Candidate Arab, would you like for me to read the question again? - Sure. - Okay. The county has increased sales taxes twice this year without voter approval. It can also raise property taxes annually. What is your position on tax increases? - I think it's important for everybody to understand that the way that Washington state works is that counties are always going to have a budget problem. So I think that leading with the fact

9:15 that we are going to start with a budget problem is the first thing that needs to happen. There needs to be better voter education around that so that they understand why we're bringing them levies. As far as the taxes that have already been passed, they make sense to me. The 1% increased property tax, we need to be taking it. Even that is not keeping up with inflation, which means that our services are going to continue to deteriorate if we're not taking that. So there's that piece of it. Additionally, I do support getting taxpayers opinions there. So levies makes sense to me. I will definitely be supporting the one that the Clark County Conservation District is putting together. I think we have a phenomenal parks and regional program in that regard, and I think that we all want to continue to keep that wonderful, and it deserves to be funded. - Thank you. Candidate Young, what is the county's responsibility for addressing water quality issues

10:12 in Lacumas and Vancouver Lakes? What additional actions should be taken, if any? - Very good question. I think water quality is very important. It's been a very big focus of my term in office. I have really led the charge at the county level on the work that we're doing at Vancouver Lake. It is a very complex subject. You're dealing with the Army Corps of Engineers, you're dealing with the Port of Vancouver, you're dealing with the county, you're dealing with the city of Vancouver, and there are other jurisdictions, but it takes a lot of tenacity and willingness to trudge through to the end. But clean water is so important. We've made investments during my time on the council, significant investments in not only addressing the lake itself, but the watershed that leads into the lake. And we have really beefed up our clean water program,