Hide and seek

Frontiersman editorial board

Our opinion

The Mat-Su Borough Assembly seems to be playing a shell game with the property tax cap initiative.

First it appeared in language that was to be on the ballot in October. But after the assembly was finished with the language and the shell was lifted, the tax cap portion of the measure was gone and voters were only holding a

2-percent sales tax measure in their hands.

Now the property tax cap measure is making a second appearance, but voters are going to have to look hard to find it. The property tax cap measure is now showing as a resolution — one that will only go into effect if the sales tax measure passes.

Of course, the decisions made by the assembly were all made with good reason. When the property tax cap measure was first brought up, assembly members were told that, as assembly member Sara Jansen pointed out in Tuesday's meeting, state law prohibits municipalities from enacting a unilaterally binding property tax cap initiative.

In simple terms, one assembly cannot enact laws or resolutions that cannot be overturned by a future assembly.

Assembly members wrangled over whether they wanted to put something before the voters that another assembly — or yes, even they themselves — could simply overturn or ignore after the voters agreed to institute a sales tax.

Eventually, assembly members decided they had to act according to their conscience, and took the promise of a property tax cap away.

But that didn't set well either. It wasn't enough to simply put a sales tax measure before the voters with no mention of a property tax cap initiative when that was clearly part of the big picture in the minds of the assembly members.

And so the measure was brought back up, but in an emaciated version that voters won't be seeing on the ballot and may not be seeing in any statements written about the ballot proposition.

This weak resolution is the real prize in the bottom of the 2-percent sales tax measure cereal box. It's the reward to property owners who have shouldered the burden of paying for roads, schools and multiple other services.

It's too bad they have to sift through pages of fine print in order to become aware of the potential prize they could receive.