You might think that this is absurd: A guy campaigning for governor on the platform form of “I won’t raise your taxes” on the citizens of Washington state is faced with the potential of having his personal taxes raised, since he is a resident of Sammamish.

As a matter of fact, every property owner in the city of Sammamish is faced with the same dilemma — should we vote to raise our property taxes in November?

So, what is this new potential tax? It is a Parks Bond. The money would be used for worthy causes — such as improving some of our parks and purchasing the existing King County Library site. Or, the council can decide to purchase a completely different site to reach out to our youth and teens.

Sammamish is an incredible city with great vision to better the lives of young people, but everything comes with a cost. In a brief discussion with Sammamish Mayor Lee Fellinge on Sept. 9, I informed him that I would not be supporting the Parks Bond. He wanted me to be positive in this article. I am actually in favor of improving our parks and other projects.

But, the issue always comes down to priorities and money. If we are going to do something, it should first be done in its order of priority. My wife and I have three children, so improving the parks and adding a youth center would be great benefits to our family.

But, I must first ask if the proposed projects represent the greatest need for the community at large? Once the higher priorities are fulfilled, then the next order of priorities could be implemented.

Even after all of these priorities are determined, a way to pay for them is the next step. The council has voted to give the citizens of Sammamish the choice on whether or not to raise their taxes in order to pay for these projects. The bond amount of $19 million is no small sum of money to raise, and yet it is still not enough to complete all of the projects. So, more money would have to be raised down the road.

Sammamish is a very wealthy city. Isn’t there a way to pay for improvements without raising taxes? We are already getting a new library, but was it needed since the existing one is already state of the art and was only dedicated back in January of 1999. Couldn’t it have been improved? For a city that has the best of the best when it comes to parks, a city hall, library, etc., do we need to go into debt?

If we do need to take our city to another level today, why don’t we figure out a way to pay for it without raising our taxes? What about getting a Post Office for Sammamish — wasn’t that a higher priority than replacing the existing library, which is less than 10 years old?

I wonder what Dino Rossi thinks about all of this?

Scott Nazarino ran for Sammamish City Council in 2007 and is president and estate planner of Secure Financial, Inc.