I recently received in the mail the voters’ pamphlet for the forthcoming general election.

San Juan County Proposition No.1 proposes to cancel an existing levy lift and replace it with a new levy lift of 18 cents per thousand. The voters’ pamphlet does not provide the most basic and essential information based on which the voter can make an informed decision.

The Explanatory Statement drafted by our county attorney, Randall K. Gaylord, does not disclose the tax rate of the existing levy lift; and thus the reader is left uniformed as to whether or not the new levy is an increase over the existing levy, and if so, by how much.

The statement does one time—almost surreptitiously—use the word “increase,” but fails to state the dollar amount or the percentage of the increase. Further, while the statement gives a laundry list of programs financed by the county, it fails to specify which programs have increased in cost and why.

In other words, the statement makes no attempt to justify the need for an increase in county tax revenues.

Looked at charitably, the explanatory statement for the proposition is simply inept and incompetently drafted. If not, then it is an exercise in obfuscation and disinformation.

The county can either treat its citizens as thinking adults and disclose the necessary information based on which the citizenry can make an informed decision, or it can treat its citizens as sheep, who blindly vote for whatever the county asks. In this instance, the county and its attorney, Mr. Gaylord, have opted to treat us as sheep.

I have two recommendations:

1) We should vote to reject the proposed levy and thereby compel the county to return at a later date with another proposition with all the relevant facts clearly stated.

2) Given the sheer incompetence of the explanatory statement, we should not vote for Mr. Gaylord, who is running unopposed for the office of county prosecuting attorney, and write-in another candidate, say, John Smith.

Robert deGavre/San Juan Island