Deadline to cast ballot for Yakima area emergency radio tax is Tuesday

Yakima County voters have until 8 p.m. Tuesday to weigh in on a sales tax to pay for an upgraded radio system for emergency responders.

Proposition 1 would put a two-tenths of 1% sales tax in place for seven years to raise money to overhaul the county’s radio system. The tax is similar to the three-tenths Law & Justice tax that generates $13 million annually for law enforcement, prosecutors, public defenders and the courts. If Proposition 1 is approved, people would pay an additional dime on a $50 purchase.



The voter guide did not have any statements opposing the tax. As of Thursday morning, 1,438 ballots had been returned, a 13.19% return rate, according to Yakima County’s election office.

The tax would generate the $35 million to upgrade the radio system and cover the $3.3 million anticipated annual operating costs in the next seven years, Sheriff Bob Udell said in an earlier interview. “This is a necessity.

We’re one of the last counties to upgrade its radio system,” said sheriff’s deputy Travis Watkins. The current system is an analog system that operates on the VHF radio band, the same band that had channels 2-13 on analog television broadcasting. As an analog system, the number of potential channels is limited to the number of frequencies, and the county’s terrain creates dead spots.

Watkins has first-hand experience with that limitation. In 2023, he was wounded during a domestic violence call when John Winston Borgman opened fire on him and Deputy Andrew Wilkinson at Borgman’s Tampico-area home. Wilkinson, who was not injured, put Watkins into his patrol vehicle and drove him to a West Valley firehouse for first-aid treatment.

Borgman got on the radio in Watkins’ patrol vehicle and got on the radio, tying up the only available radio channel in that area, making it difficult for responding units to coordinate or to know what happened to Watkins. Watkins said Wilkinson was unable to update dispatchers on their situation. Had a new system been in place, dispatchers could have remotely turned off the radio in Watkins' car or put Borgman and responding units on separate channels.

Watkins said the current radios also lose signals going into buildings, including houses, schools, MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital and fruit warehouses. He said a deputy having to do CPR in someone’s house would either have to use a cellphone or stop CPR and move to a window to call for additional help. “The citizens will benefit from this (upgraded system),” Watkins said.

Within the city, electrical interference drowns out the radio signals right now. Udell said the county began looking into upgrading the radios after a false alarm about an active shooter at West Valley High School in 2019 . Sheriff’s deputies and Yakima police officers who responded were not able to talk to each other on their radios, even though they could see each other across the parking lot.

The new system would still use VHF frequencies for the remote areas of the county but would also use a 700-800-megahertz system in the cities, which would be able to punch through both interference and buildings. With a digital system, dispatchers would be able to create separate group channels for operations, putting responding units together so they can communicate with each other. Udell and YPD Lt.

Ira Cavin said the tax is dedicated solely to the radio system and cannot be spent elsewhere. The measure requires a simple majority to pass. Voters can return ballots either in person to drop boxes located around the county or by mail.

Mail-in ballots need to be postmarked no later than April 22..