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March 20, 2015

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

First, I’d like to invite you to participate in a 5th District telephone town hall with my seatmate, Rep. Jay Rodne, and me next Thursday, March 26, from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. The call-in number is (425) 201-0709. You can ask questions, vote in issue surveys, or simply listen in to hear the latest news from the Legislature. We hope you can join us!

In-district town hall meetings a success

A big thank you to everyone who came to the 5th District town hall meetings last weekend. Rep. Rodne and I really appreciated the great turnouts in Maple Valley, Issaquah and North Bend. We had thoughtful discussions on many issues, including education and transportation.

If you weren’t able to make the town hall meetings, feel free to participate in our telephone town hall. Or, you can contact me any time at chad.magendanz@leg.wa.gov. I’m here to serve you.

Transportation survey results

Two weeks ago I invited you to take an online transportation survey. The results are in! In all, there were 278 responses. Two of the questions were the same ones I asked in a survey last year. The comparison is interesting.

On the question of how much more per gallon you’d be willing to pay for certain transportation improvement areas:

• Last year, people were willing to pay one to two cents more per gallon for maintaining existing roads and infrastructure, and adding capacity to existing roads. People were not willing to pay any additional gas tax for building new roads, maintaining existing transit service, adding new transit service, ferries, bicycle lanes and pedestrian paths.
• This year, most people weren’t willing to pay a higher gas tax for any of these areas.

On the question of if you think our transportation system should be reformed before or along with a transportation tax package, or if our transportation needs are too urgent and we should pass a gas tax now:

• Last year, 75% said reforms first; 25% said pass a tax package now.
• This year, 79% said reforms first; 21% said pass a tax package now.

You’ll find the rest of the survey results in the image to the right (click to enlarge). Thank you to everyone who participated — I value your opinions.

Finally, if you’d like to watch my latest video update, click here. To hear my latest podcast, click here.

That’s all for this week. In the next update I’ll talk about the budget proposals that should be coming out in the next week or two.

Sincerely,

Chad Magendanz