After reading the article in the Oct.12 edition of the Valley Record, I felt it necessary to write you about the Snoqualmie mayor’s election. When reviewing each candidate’s interview, some striking differences were apparent. Mr. Larson’s quote: “Any politician that goes out these days and says adamantly they are against a tax increase is either a liar or a fool” followed by, “In the post-Eyman world, it is not if you ask for a tax increase, but when,” is telling of this candidate’s position. Matt Larson will raise taxes and won’t think twice about it. If we ran our household budgets the way Matt is proposing to run the city budget, we’d simply just go to our employers and ask for more money whenever we ran short. Tax and spend is not the solution!

Contrast this to Greg Harrelson’s interview. He offered suggestions that appear to be viable, such as bringing traffic ticket revenues back to the city for processing instead of having them processed in Issaquah, and continuing to revitalize the historic railroad district and Ridge retail businesses to keep much-needed sales tax dollars in the area.

Matt has been the longest sitting member of the City Council. As a council member, he has had the capability to correct the spending of various city departments, specifically the police and fire departments. If Matt and the other council members have a problem with the money being spent on these departments, why did they approve their budgets? Matt’s solution is to cut back on the police and have a partial volunteer fire department. This is not Mayberry! Considering the growth in the next five years, we will need these police officers and firefighters and possibly even more. With growth comes a myriad of social problems and potential crime. I feel safe having a fully-staffed police department and would be concerned if we had to rely on the King County Sheriff’s Office.

With regards to a partial volunteer fire department, the financial liability could be huge! Considering Matt’s wish to bring in more high-tech companies, like bio-tech firms, we will require a sophisticated fire department to address the potential hazardous materials that come with these businesses. Cutting these departments or supplementing with volunteers is not prudent for the future of Snoqualmie.

Also, having a new community center and swimming pool are fine ideas, but can we afford such grandeur with Matt’s stated $2-million short fall in revenues? As a community, we voted the concept down because it was too expensive. Raising our taxes with LIDS, levies and bond measures to get around voter-approved limits on raising taxes is political trickery!

Greg Harrelson’s ideas benefit all Snoqualmie residents. So, I’ll be casting my vote for Greg Harrelson on Nov. 8. I hope you will, too.

Dwight Harvey

Snoqualmie