News From District 2 – “Keep Taxes Low” Becomes A Meme

Dennis King Adds To His Large Political Signs • Surveys Show: Even his supporters know “Keeping Taxes Low” has been a “no-go.”

Throughout the beautiful neighborhoods of Puyallup’s District 2 yesterday, incumbent city council candidate Dennis King added the phrase “keeping taxes low” to his signs littering our street corners. Then he promoted those eyebrow-raising signs to his Facebook page, and even shared sign photos to “Being Neighborly: Puyallup” where readers have started clicking their reactions and adding comments. (His post seems to have been deleted now.)

Some of his opponents soon began trolling his post, trying to get King to respond and explain why he thinks raising taxes more than ever before in the history of the city is somehow keeping taxes low. It’s understandable that his opponents want to get him to start engaging since King has declined participation in any mutual campaign forums, including the one sponsored by the non-partisan League of Women Voters.

Heather Schiller, the candidate running to unseat King in District 2, simply commented with a link to the PV4I website which details all of King’s tax increases. That’s understandable considering we do list his tax increases on our site, but it’s a disappointing voters didn’t get a chance to see them debate the issues at forums where she showed up and he was absent.

Heather Schiller, candidate for Puyallup City Council, District 2

Supporters of Heather Schiller have asked us why we haven’t discussed her campaign more on our website. It’s true we are all about fiscal responsibility, and yes, she puts that topic near the top of her website’s issue page, while King lacks a similar page focused on issues. But King’s record on city council speaks for itself … despite what his “Keep Taxes Low” signage now suggests. (This just in: he also added “Proven Record” to some of his signs which is exactly what we’ve been saying – it’s a proven record of raising taxes.) Schiller states under her Fiscal Responsibility heading that she’ll “champion cost-effective solutions that maximize community benefit without wasteful spending. Her approach is rooted in accountability, long-term planning, and a commitment to getting the most out of every investment.”

Schiller also claims over two decades of experience as an insurance industry professional, and she did chair the Puyallup Planning commission for 2 of her 4 years serving on that body. That’s more experience than most first-time candidates for city council have when they run for office, but voters will have to assess for themselves what they hear from her at the doors – she claimed yesterday on her Facebook page to have knocked on 5,000 doors during her campaign. We can’t find a door-knocking outreach claim from King.

District 2 Surveys Show How Often King Supporters Disagree With His Tax Increases

Our plan has been to share updates every Tuesday regarding the surveys we started distributing to voters in Puyallup on October 14th. Last week’s update was limited by having to respond to attacks that incumbent candidates King and Kastama launched against Puyallup Voters for Integrity. They called us, and specifically, our District 2 resident treasurer (who has been a civic volunteer participating in Puyallup issues for the past 15 years) names such as “shill” and “political operative” in a vain attempt to distract voters from the information shared on our website. Ironically, all the information we share comes from the City of Puyallup’s own website pages and drop-down menus regarding the public safety building as well as council agendas and minutes.

King’s surprising addition to his signage yesterday prompted us to give readers a preview of the survey results we planned to share on Tuesday. One of the interesting findings we’re seeing is that even those who have chosen King as their preference understand and acknowledge all the taxes and fees he increased. We wonder what they are going to think when they see on his signage the claim about “keeping taxes low.” Here’s a peek at what a couple of those supporters shared in their comments:

• Agree with the 6% property tax increase but: “Don’t agree with Natural Gas bill and Xfinity fee increases…..” and some of the transportation tax district decisions but: “No sales tax increase for the City of Puyallup….” and regarding municipal utility fee increases: “Only if there are no further increases in 2026. If so, then none of the utility fee increases.”

• Agree with the property tax increase as well as electricity/gas/cable increases saying “You can only pass the buck for so long….” and “If we want nice things then we need to pay for them….” but disagreeing with all the utility fee increases, and regarding the expenditure on the festival street, saying “I don’t think this was a good idea of city funds.”

Bringing The Conversation Back To The Issues

We understand that the last couple weeks of a campaign can get heated and emotional, but we wish the conversation would come back to reality: if we need to pay more for something, the candidates running for re-election should talk about why they think so. Few people disagree that we need capitol investments in the city, but many residents disagree on how council is operating to get there.

As leaders of city council over the past 2 years, King and his cohort Kastama have increased every tax they had the power to raise, and they raised everything to the maximum allowed by Washington State law as Kastama admitted in his first Facebook post about PV4I. They did it to build projects negotiated in back-room deals at twice the cost of more viable and affordable options.

If voters agree with those decisions, then we’ll see a Puyallup City Council continue with business as usual. If voters disagree with the tax-and-spend path this council took over the past 2 years, we may see fresh faces coming soon. Then work can begin to keep city council accountable, and to find a better way of doing business with our tax dollars.

What do you think? Take the Survey!
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Please consider a donation of any amount, and invite your friends to like our Facebook page. Sponsored by Puyallup Voters for Integrity, PO Box 42, Puyallup WA 98371. No candidate or party contributes to, authorizes or controls this Political Action Committee which is registered at the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission. 2025 campaign season contributors over the $100 threshold so far include Chris Chisholm, PV4I Treasurer. When facts are presented, we want them to be accurate. If you find any errors, please email us with original-source evidence for correction.