By Bill Lucia | Editor
Backers of the measure to repeal the state’s new income tax on high earners said they turned in more than 511,400 signatures yesterday to get the initiative qualified for the November ballot. That total is well above the required minimum of 309,000. So it appears very likely voters will get a say on the tax. The initiative would overturn the 9.9% levy on household and individual income over $1 million a year, while leaving in place tax breaks and a tax credit expansion embedded in the law.
Also in today’s edition…
Firework risks heading into the Fourth of July weekend.
And, backyard cookout costs are up compared to last year.
News tips, feedback, questions? Email us: [email protected]
Ashley Butenschoen, a volunteer for Let’s Go Washington, hands boxes of ballot initiative petitions to the group’s founder, Brian Heywood, on Thursday at the secretary of state’s office in Tumwater. (Photo by Jerry Cornfield/Washington State Standard)
By Jerry Cornfield
Brian Heywood, the hedge fund manager who leads Let’s Go Washington, said that the message he’s heard from voters around the state is that they suspect lawmakers will eventually lower the $1 million threshold for applying the income tax. “Not one single person we talk to believes Olympia when they say this income tax is not coming to them. They know it’s coming for them,” he said. The state’s certification process for the ballot initiative is expected to last about two weeks.
Public sector labor unions, including the Washington Education Association, Washington Federation of State Employees and Service Employees International Union, are spending to fight the measure. Critics of the initiative were on the attack yesterday, arguing that if it is approved, lawmakers will be forced to abandon the tax relief provisions in the law. “Heywood is pretending that he can offer voters something for nothing,” said Erik Houser, spokesman for the newly launched No on 645 committee.
(Photo by Barbara Hoberock/Oklahoma Voice)
By Aspen Ford
State and local fire officials are urging caution when lighting fireworks this July Fourth weekend, especially as a statewide drought raises wildfire risks. Outdoor burning restrictions are in place around the state. As of Thursday, fire risks are very high in the Lower Yakima Basin and high in most of eastern Washington. West of the Cascades, the fire risk is moderate after a stretch of cooler weather and some rain. Last year’s Bear Gulch Fire, which grew to over 20,000 acres in the Olympic National Forest and took four months to contain, was started by a firework around the Fourth of July. It was one of the 79 firework-ignited fires on state land last year, over half of which were in western Washington, according to the Department of Natural Resources.
By Cami Koons
The cost of backyard barbecue has grown 4% from last year, at about the same pace as inflation, according to an annual American Farm Bureau Federation survey. The survey estimates a 10-person feast of cheeseburgers, chicken breasts, pork chops, potato chips, pork and beans, fresh strawberries, homemade potato salad, fresh-squeezed lemonade, chocolate chip cookies and ice cream will cost $73.82 — a little more than $7 a plate. This is $2.90 more than 2025, and the highest price since the survey began in 2016. A decade ago, the cookout ingredients totaled $56.67.
ICYMI
Revamp of WA public records rules nears completion | by Jake Goldstein-Street
Washington governor and lawmakers get 7% pay hikes | by Jerry Cornfield
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