The Burien City Levy Is a Shell Game, Reject It

Martin Barrett

Oct 24, 2025 - 2 min read

Editorial by Martin Barrett- The Highline Journal Editorial Board

Voters will decide on Nov. 4th whether or not to reject the City of Burien’s Proposition 1 (Levy Lid for Public Safety.) The city has plenty of money for public safety. What it does not have plenty of money for is the continuation of social services that were brought in during the Pandemic and paid for by the federal government. Those federal funds have run out.

But the city staff, city manager, and some of the city council want to keep those programs going. These programs were not effective during COVID, and they continue to be ineffective now. Governments rarely choose to shrink voluntarily, and this is a local example of the ever-expanding government mentality.

This levy is a shell game. In politics, a “shell game” means a deception or evasive action. The city staff know the taxpayers are unlikely in these difficult times to fund a levy for increased social services. But public safety is normally a winner. Most people respond with a yes when asked to support policing and safe streets.

So the city strategy is to raise the money through a levy for public safety, and then the city can afford to keep its social services by moving the fungible (replaceable) monies.

If this levy is rejected, it won’t cut police, but it will bring about a cut in the temporary COVID-related services they have been using. At City Council meetings, the city manager has repeated over and over again that without these levy funds, they will have to make substantial cuts to the city staff, specifically those who came in under the federally funded COVID programs. This emotional manipulation is dishonest.

Vote NO on the levy. The city's number one responsibility is public safety. In fact, it is one of the few things that the state constitution requires them to do. What is left over can be used for the social services, which would then return to what they were prior to the pandemic.. Those programs had questionable outcomes then and likely will continue to have questionable outcomes now. There’s no reason for the Burien taxpayer to carry this burden.