News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The Sisters City Council approved a 3 cent gas tax at its Thursday, August 13, meeting.
The vote was 4-1 in favor, with Councilor Sharlene Weed dissenting.
The tax may be immediately thrown into question as Oregon Petroleum Association representative Paul Romain said he would immediately launch a petition to refer the matter to voters in the March election.
Romain told The Nugget such a petition in Sisters would require 109 signatures.
"I'll get 'em in two days," he said.
A referendum on the local gas tax could throw the council's decision into legal limbo. Romain said he has been filing such petitions across Oregon as municipalities scramble to beat a September 28 deadline for a moratorium on such taxes. Madras passed a gas tax last Wednesday, and Redmond is considering one as well.
The revenue from the tax is designated for street maintenance and repair. The City of Sisters estimates that the street fund will need $140,000 per year in additional funds to properly maintain streets. The street fund has been subsidized for years by transfers from the city's general fund.
The city estimates that the gas tax would cost the average local driver $21 per year. Staff notes that all drivers who gas up in Sisters would pay it. An alternative revenue source, a utility bill surcharge, would affect only city residents and commercial property owners and would cost $114 per year per account.
Fuel dealers in Sisters are concerned that a local gas tax will put them at a competitive disadvantage against stations in Bend, where prices are already several cents lower.
Steve Rodgers, owner of the Mainline Station Chevron at the west end of town, said he would be much more comfortable with a vote of the city residents because that would give some indication that they would continue to buy their fuel in Sisters.
"Let's wait a few more years, tighten our belts," he said. "Put it to a vote of the people."
Councilor Bill Merrill dismissed concerns about competitiveness, arguing that "price is not a determining factor... in where people buy gas." He said that no one would spend $5 to drive to Bend just to save 90 cents on a tank of gas.
"Maybe the village idiot would do that," he said. "I wouldn't."
Merrill said the cost of deferring maintenance on local streets is too high.
Councilor Weed said that it wasn't a question of deferring maintenance, that the city could tighten its belt and continue to maintain streets. She said she favors a gas tax for street maintenance, but not right now.
"I don't believe this is the time, in this economy, to institute a gas tax," she said.
Virginia Lindsey, a citizen who has written in opposition to the tax, said she had changed her mind, concerned that the city would have to dip into contingency and reserve funds. She said that the alternative of a utility bill surcharge "is pretty atrocious."
Mike Morgan challenged the legality of the city's move. The city's position is that the local charter does not forbid the council from levying a tax without a vote of the people, therefore it has the right to levy the tax on its own.
Morgan challenged that, noting that Madras' charter specifically states that the council can levy taxes and that the Sisters charter has no such language. That, Morgan says, gives the Madras council power the Sisters council doesn't have.
"Madras has it," he said. "You don't."
City Attorney Steve Bryant assured councilors that the city council does have the power and the right to impose the tax.
Mayor Lon Kellstrom has advocated strongly for the tax and voted in favor Thursday night. Along with Merrill, councilors Jerry Bogart and Pat Thompson also voted in favor of the tax.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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