Last Saturday I attended a talk about the costs of dealing with Seattle’s homeless. I learned that the rest of King County pays almost nothing to deal with this while bragging that they, the folks in those communities, have no homeless problem.
Then I read about the problems facing Medina. Medina .. a tiny enclave along the shores of Lake Washington is a city of about 3000, fewer than Seattle’s homeless. Despite all that wealth, Medina is struggling to pay its bills because the citizens there do not pay much taxes .. in fact their homes are evaluated at only about 65% of their true worth.
Medina has real costs unique to its wealthy citizens .. including an exceptional police force and city wide surveillance system! And imagine the costs when the police need to protect a visiting potentate like the King of Saudi Arabia or Warren Buffett coming to dinner by the lake?
So, Medina needs to RAISE its taxes. To illustrate the situation. Medina residents Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos each have a net worth 15,000 times the city’s annual $6.9 million budget, but Medina collects a combined $139,826 in property taxes on their lakefront homes.
