Here are the rules for voting in Washington State. Everyone is encouraged to vote and it is your right. You do need to register to vote, however, and you do need to be a resident of Washington State.
To register to vote, you must be:
At this time I’m against Initiative Measure No. 1240. Our schools are constantly needing more money now and obviously can’t manage what we have in place so I can’t imagine them digging any deeper into a hole with charter schools. I do support the idea of the charter school system and perhaps would support it in the future. At this time, however, better management, reviews, and oversight is needed in our current public schools to see where the over spending is happening and how improvements can be made. Our public schools today are constantly complaining about lack of funding (I blame it on spending), however, with the money they are getting now through enrollment – it would be passed to the charter schools making it even more difficult. It’s a very messy situation and the main reason I can’t support it at this time is because our current system (financial for schools) needs to be examined and repaired first.
Initiative Measure No. 1240.
“This measure would authorize up to forty publicly-funded charter schools open to all students, operated through approved, nonreligious, nonprofit organizations, with government oversight; and modify certain laws applicable to them as public schools. “
As I do support the idea of charter schools and would most likely support it down the road, due to to the current situation of public school system I can’t support this initiative at this time. We need to root out the problems with our current system first.
I’m tired of the constant and steady (and sneaky) raises in my taxes. It’s always the same story each time and it goes a little like this “we’re broke” or “the recession is hurting us” or perhaps “they keep cutting our funding”. It’s troubling especially with all the revenue being generated from every sector. The revenue being generated is at it’s highest! I believe the problem is with the spending and management and it each department needs to become completely transparent with line item spending. Until that happens I will never be for raising taxes.
I believe most people would support raising taxes if they knew where each dollar was going. They wouldn’t have a problem supporting their schools or the local fire department, however, without honesty and complete transparency, the public will not support it because they know it’s due to wasteful spending internally.
Initiative Measure No. 1185
Initiative Measure No. 1185 is already the law but will be expiring soon. Your vote supporting it renews the law making it more difficult to raise taxes on all of us. Your vote for Initiative Measure No. 1185 “would restate existing statutory requirements that legislative actions raising taxes must be approved by two-thirds legislative majorities or receive voter approval, and that new or increased fees require majority legislative approval.”
Just two years ago, 64% of voters approved this measure. I stand with them to re-instate this measure for many years to come. Don’t raise my taxes unless you come to me with a plan and full transparency (line item spending) for your department/program. We then can make a decision if its useful or useless.
