Driscoll Interview Continued...

Here are the rest of the questions and answers with John Driscoll.

Anonymous asked:  What is your solution to the high dropout rate in Spokane High Schools?

 Driscoll:  I believe the dropout problem begins in Middle School.  I think if you wait until the time they're in High School,  intervention to reduce the dropout rate at the High School level is too late, you have probably already lost the kid.  I'm a strong believer that we need to do 2 things.  One, we already did, eliminate the high stakes test. That caused kids to say if they could never pass the test why stay in school. It contributed to the drop out rate so we eliminated that test. My wife was a sixth grade teacher for 25 years plus I have a graduate degree in psychology.  So what I know is every human learns differently from every other human. So you need well trained teachers who understand that one kid is good at reading and bad at math. You need guidance counselors who understand this, someone who will sit down with the kid and look at what they are good at and give them some ideas of what career they could go into.  That is one of the most important things that is missing.  Our education systems is based on the fact that everyone will go to college.  That's not true.  Only 20% of Americans have a college degree, 80% don't.  What are we doing to help that 80%.  There are apprenticeship programs, a lot of things we can do at the high school level, job skills training.  I think those would help, if we give the kids a reason to stay in school, a reason that they believe in.

Bob asked:  How would you change the state tax structure?  Would you be in favor of state income tax?

Driscoll:  I am absolutely opposed to any tax increases at this time.  I voted against all of them so far in my two year career.      First a disclaimer, that's a non legislative effort.  The legislature has nothing to do with initiatives.  So my views are as a private citizen.  I look at the initiative on the ballot right now and think it is very unbalanced. I think we are hitting less than 2% of the population.  And one of the complaints I hear about sales tax is how unbalanced that is.  The low income person may pay as much as 15, 20% of their income in sales tax.  So we've been trying to eliminate sales tax because it hits low income people worst.  I look at this one as opposite but the same phenomenon with hitting a small segment of our population.  So as far as tax reform overall I think we have a broken system.  So what I would do in a revenue neutral way, meaning don't raise taxes, but I would eliminate the Business and Occupation tax completely and I would limit the sales tax severely, I don't think we can get rid of it but I think we can reduce it.  Right now we have property tax, sales tax and B&O tax for our main revenue sources.  I think we get rid of B&O, do something with sales tax, and we need a revenue neutral, net revenue taxation system. Will we ever get there?  I don't know.  What I just said has been talked about in the state of Washington since the 30's.


Debbie asked:   What do you think about the candy tax?

Driscoll:  Again I don't think so, especially in Spokane. In this economy raising taxes costs us jobs period.  So when we did candy tax and beer and water tax it made people go to Idaho to go shopping.  It hurts our retail businesses here.  We needed the revenue but we didn't get a lot of revenue out of Spokane.  Businesses improved in Idaho, retail businesses improved as a result of us adding 800 million dollars worth of taxes.

Debbie asked:  Should the State get out of the liquor business?

Driscoll:  My biggest issue with liquor sales in general is public safety.  We have worked real hard to reduce drunk driving.  We have strong DUI laws.  I am concerned if we turn liquor sales, not beer and wine, but if we make liquor sales a retail transaction I am concerned with robberies at small convenience stores in the middle of the night.  I'm concerned about increasing alcohol consumption.  I'm not saying the state should be in the liquor business but I am saying we need to regulate and control it.  We don't want the public safety hazards that happen due to excessive alcohol consumption.  The state also needs the revenue so if we privatize it we lose revenue that cannot be replaced.  This is the worst time to take revenue away from the state.   So if we did anything I certainly would not do it now.


Debbie: Anything you want the voters to know that you haven't been asked yet.

Driscoll:  Those were all good questions.  Back to the first question.  I have a six year old grandson.  His name is Frankie.  He is actually John Francis Driscoll VI.  I have a straight line, 6 generations of first born male John F Driscolls.  My grandfather and great grandfather are buried side by side here in Spokane.  My father is 83, I'm 53, my son is 32, my grandson is 6.  I look at that succession, we are Spokane people.  I look at my grandson and he is my touch stone for all my decisions.  I want to make sure he has good schools and all those job choices and opportunities.  I want to do my best to create a world where my grandson gets a great education here, a good job, can afford to live here and raise his family here so we have more generations of my family making this their home.