November 11, 2016 – At the most recent Newman Lake Property Owners Association Board Meeting the board members unanimously endorsed the “Fair and Equitable Assessment” Petition. Below is a brief summary of the petition.
You may have had a volunteer ask for your signature on a “Fair and Equitable” assessment petition recently. This is the first step in reviewing and possibly changing how much property owners pay to the Newman Lake Flood Control Zone District (NLFCZD).
The existing system requires owners of 770 property parcels, which make up about 1300 acres of Newman Lake’s 26,000 acre watershed, fund the entire budget for the flood control district which controls the level of the lake. The NLFCZD also manages dam maintenance, water quality and invasive species control efforts in our lake.
Your NLFCZD assessment is based on the valuation of your home and property. Some parcels pay much less than others with similar homes and acreage. Also, people who use the public boat launch pay nothing toward the lake’s maintenance, Spokane County pays nothing, and the State of Washington (which legally owns the lake) pays nothing.
The petition starts the process to revise the way assessments are calculated, which will make it more “fair and equal” in the future, so please consider signing the petition.
I’m curious about the participation, or lack of it, by the state and/or Spokane county regarding this fair and equitable assessment of Newman Lake. Will the state and county be puting in their fair and equitable share of these expenses? Or, will the total burden of taking care of their legally owned lake fall entirely on the Newman Lake property owners alone with no help from the above mentioned municipalities? Ron, Newman Lake.
Ron
This is certainly a question that has been asked numerous times and a feeling that is shared by many of our residents.
Unfortunately, it is too early to know the answer to the question. The community members that are working on this issue must first establish, and get agreement with the County Commissioners, that the way the assessments are currently done is unfair and inequitable. Although we are well on our way to doing this with the Spokane County Commissioners and our state legislators through Senate Bill 5543, we continue to work on this stage of the task. We also must show that the community, or many of it’s residents are not happy with the current system and want it to be re-evaluated. The petitions should show this as they actually have the signatures of the residents showing support for the re-evaluation of the assessments. We should be submitting the petitions to the county for validation in the upcoming weeks. The next phase that a group of community members are just getting started on is interviewing other lake districts and people with experience in these issues to share with the group and the commissioners office what they have done and the logic behind their decisions. We are trying to establish a “menu” of alternatives of how our “district” could/should be managed (under what portion of the law) and who should be paying for it. It is in this phase that this question will be documented. I would imagine that once this “menu” is established and the Community members working with the commissioner’s office start to review the choices, the community will once again be asked for their input. This is when we need community members like you to come forward and provide input and support.
We realize this is not a very definitive answer to the question, but the overall task of “fixing” this issue is a complex (legal) one and one where we do not expect anyone, including the County and State, to step forward, and take some responsibility for financial supporting the lake without a fight.
Respectfully,
Dennis Rewinkel, Newman Lake Resident