Submit as a private citizen, not a city employee

As a citizen of this city, I respectfully request that Beth Goldberg does not write letters to the editor of The Seattle Times using her official title, when those opinions are not backed up by the facts that her own office has told the City Council [“Clarification on taxes,” Northwest Voices, July 15].

Her letter states the following: “The fact that the arena will be financed by revenues that would not exist but for the arena, with no new taxes, is a key pillar of the proposal.”

Her assistant budget director, Hall Walker, informed the council that the arena proposal will result in a property-tax increase for Seattle taxpayers, due to the fact that it is first put on, then taken off the city’s tax rolls. According to their figures, that amounts to some $25 million over 30 years, about 11 percent of the total.

How is that not a new tax?

“The city will not experience any additional tax liability resulting from this project.” How does Goldberg know that, please?

I respectfully request that Goldberg publicly correct these statements.

If she wishes to make comments to The Times in the future that are not objective in nature, she should do so as a private citizen — not as a city employee.

— Scott Aspman, Seattle