By Pat Jenkins The Dispatch A citizen-sponsored referendum that could put an end to plans for a $230 million Pierce County government office building has qualified for a yea or nay from voters this fall. Backers of the referendum who circulated petitions for two months gathered enough signatures of registered voters to have the measure qualify for the ballot for the Nov. 3 general election. The county auditor's elections department announced last Friday that it had validated 24,493 signatures. A minimum of 24,427 were needed. Election officials said 33,519 signatures on petitions turned in by Citizens for Responsible Spending, the group trying to stop the county from building the complex that would be a center for county government, were checked against signatures already on file in county voter rolls. Of those, 9,025 were challenged, but enough of the others were authenticated to reach the ballot requirement. Voters now will be asked if the County Council approval of the project should be repealed, which likely would stop the project, or if it should stand. The project received the council's go-ahead in February but has been held up by citizen opposition and discord within the council itself. Council members voted in April to schedule an advisory vote for next month's primary election, which will allow voters to give their non-binding opinion on whether the project should go forward. Those results could be a preview of the referendum voting in November. Opposition to the project so far has centered mainly on its pricetag. The projected cost of the building, initially about $127 million in reports from county officials, has risen to $230 million with the addition of long-term financing. County Executive Pat McCarthy proposed the building earlier this year and initially received the backing of a majority of council members. But Citizens for Responsible Spending launched a petition drive for a referendum to stop it. The county filed and later withdrew a lawsuit against the referendum, but two Tacoma residents also sued on the same grounds that a construction project like the general services building, as it's been called in plans, isn't subject to citizen referendums. That lawsuit was dismissed in May by a Superior Court judge from Kitsap County, who was asked by Pierce County court officials to rule on the case in order to avoid any conflicts of interest for Pierce judges. The Kitsap judge decided the plaintiffs didn't prove sufficient harm to the public would come from the referendum. McCarthy said last Friday that she hopes "to keep this project moving forward. Otherwise, maintaining the status quo will cost taxpayers over $300 million over the next 25 years, which is far more than the project's total cost.GÇ¥ She referred to the savings in county spending that she and other supporters of the project claim would come from multiple county agencies being housed in a single, county-owned location instead of several buildings scattered around the Tacoma area that the county leases from landlords. "The merits of this project are clear,GÇ¥ McCarthy said. "We can save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and dramatically improve customer service by consolidating 19 divisions from 14 locations into one. We can do this while owning the building instead of continuing to lease at escalating costs.GÇ¥ She added that "no tax increases are necessaryGÇ¥ for the general services office, which would be built on the county-owned site of the former Puget Sound Hospital in Tacoma. Jerry Gibbs, the chairman of Citizens for Responsible Spending, has said that his group's goal is to satisfy "tax-paying citizens of Pierce County who only want to exercise their right to voteGÇ¥ on the project. Gibbs, who lives in Gig Harbor, is a political activist who worked as a nuclear production manager for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton before retiring. Another leader of Citizens for Responsible Spending is vice chairwoman Kerry Hooks, a Frederickson resident who is active in that community as a member of the Frederickson-Clover Creek Community Council. She also is a member of the Frederickson Land-Use and Advisory Commission. She was appointed last year by McCarthy to the commission, which advises county government on land-use matters in the Frederickson area.
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