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Chair's Corner: The view from Vancouver |
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Written On: November/December 2007 |
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Written By: by Brad Carlson, Chair, Board of Directors |
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Brad Carlson owns Evergreen Memorial Gardens in Vancouver. He served on the board of his local chapter of the American Cancer Society and is active in the Washington State Funeral Directors Association. He is active with the Vancouver Executives Association and is a loyal Washington State University grad, donating both time and money to his alma mater.
When I introduce myself and tell people where I live and work, people often ask me how I like living in Canada. I have tell them it's Vancouver, Washington, right across the Columbia River from Portland, Ore.
Back in the mid-1800s, Fort Vancouver was one of the first outposts in the wild and uncharted Northwest. Modern-day Vancouver has always lived in the shadow of Portland. But southwest Washington, with Vancouver as its hub, has become one of the Northwest's fastest-growing urban areas.
What was once a resource-based city with paper plants, sawmills, grain terminals, and family farms is now a metropolitan area and mecca for the high-tech industry. And, to a large degree, southwest Washington is still tied to the Portland economic region, with the thriving high-tech community on both sides of the Columbia River.
Each day, millions of dollars in commerce flows across the Interstate 5 and Interstate 205 bridges. Many Washingtonians shop in Portland to avoid the sales tax, even though they are supposed to pay the use tax. Many people who work in Oregon choose to live in Washington because our property taxes are lower, our schools are better funded, and the cost of family homes is more reasonable.
As a long-time Vancouver resident, I know that living across the river from Portland has many advantages. As the owner of a family business, I see the competitive pressures as well. Some are good, while some are problematic.
My family is the second-generation owner of Evergreen Memorial Gardens. In my business, we see families at the most sensitive and difficult time of their lives—when a loved one dies. It's also the time when people are least prepared to deal with things like estate taxes, yet taxes are a huge problem for many families we work with.
For us, repealing the state "death tax" is a big deal. It doesn't take too much these days to exceed $2 million in family assets when you consider the price of your home and a few modest investments.
Someday, our two daughters may inherit our business. But as everyone knows, plans have a way of changing. If something were to happen to my wife or myself, our children would have to deal with inheritance taxes as well as running the business.
We also deal a lot with insurance policies. When a loved one dies, there is often a life insurance policy to cover the funeral. Affordability of insurance is important for most people, and when the cost of insurance is too high, people are less likely to buy adequate coverage. When a death in the family occurs, especially for younger couples with children, life insurance is critical in order for them to go on living.
The cost of insurance is important to us. We provide health insurance for our employees and buy auto, life, fire, liability, business and property insurance for Evergreen Memorial Gardens. It's expensive. The next time you hear one of those ads on television encouraging you to "just let the insurance company pay for it," implying it doesn’t impact you, think again.
In our litigious society, people suffer. Most folks don't realize that the cost of litigation impacts families and small business like ours in the form of higher premiums and, sometimes, less coverage.
Costs really matter for small businesses. Some in public office would say, "Well, you own a cemetery and you can't move it out of state." True, but we need to make our services affordable to people. Government can't just pile on new taxes and higher fees and not expect their actions to have an impact.
In reality, costs that impact larger businesses like Boeing hit the small business owners just as hard. We're all in this together. Without businesses—both large and small—generating income and employing people, government wouldn’t have the money to pay for police and fire protection, good schools and wider roads.
The key is balance, making government more user-friendly and cost efficient, and insuring that all businesses in Washington are competitive. As residents of a border city, those of us in Vancouver can see the contrasts. Hopefully, through the efforts of the Association of Washington Business, people will look north of the Columbia River rather than south to build homes, start and maintain businesses, and raise their families, as we have been fortunate to do.
I look forward to my year as AWB chair.
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