Who is surprised that Everett is rethinking the annexation of Eastmont/Hilton Lake neighborhoods east of Silver Lake?
Even with a possible $10 million sales tax rebate, annexing developed areas not consistent with their own planning strategy does not pencil out. That should not be a surprise.
I don’t care one way or another about whether Everett annexes. I do care about the reasons Everett is reluctant to move forward with annexation. It is all about the money.
Over the years, cities have been accused of “cherry picking” commercial properties in annexations because they represented a revenue stream for the city taking them in. In some cases the resulting criticism has been that they left the existing residential areas out because they represented a financial liability.
There is no doubt they are both true. My question would be “Why is the county planning and permitting urban subdivisions in unincorporated areas?” It would seem to me that cities would be better able to gauge the need and the corresponding ability to render services.
In rural counties, cities drive development because they provide the services. The character of development is clearly different comparing areas with services to areas without services. In this case services are water and sewer. Development emanates from the central service provider to neighborhoods on the fringe. More dense residential and commercial development in the city is contrasted to less of both across the city line.
The availability of water is the first major obstacle to development. In most cases, drinking water is available to most areas through public water providers. In unincorporated areas water districts do the job.
With sewers, the situation is a little more difficult. Traditionally, septic systems with drain fields provided the means for residential development inside and outside of cities. When lots are large, this is a workable technology. As residential lots have gotten smaller, the need for public sewer systems has increased. The same is true with businesses. When a mom and pop business opened, it could function on a septic and drain field. As businesses got bigger, they also needed public sewers.
Today we can still find business enterprises in rural non-sewered areas, but they have significant land allocated for drain fields. Drain field technologies enable some larger businesses to exist in areas not served by sewers, but more often than not, they are too expensive.
As cities do their comprehensive planning, they address all the needs of a city as they proceed. They recognize that residential development creates burdens on all the utilities, the police, the fire and the schools. At one time, property tax revenue was a reliable source of government funding. We used to have the ability to raise revenue by as much as 6% per year. When the 6% was reduced to 1%, residential development became a liability. The change was good for tax payers; it wasn’t good for service providers.
In order to offset the liability of residential neighborhoods, comprehensive plans need revenue producing land uses that do not create undue burdens on municipal services. If you want to characterize them as cherries, that works for me. Planners need to be mindful of long term financial needs of the greater community when they do their work.
Snohomish County paid little attention to long term needs of the area when they adopted the plan for Silver Firs and the properties east of the Bothell-Everett Highway. Until just recently, there were no businesses east of 35th Ave SE. I don’t know how many homes have been built in the thousands of acres east of Everett and Mill Creek, but if there are only six to the acre, there are about ten thousand homes built outside anyone’s Urban Growth Area.
There is probably a standard that suggests how much General Commercial area a city needs for every hundred acres of residential, but I don’t know what it is. Whatever that number might be, the area east of Everett and Mill Creek is definitely short.
If all those homes represent a liability, why would either city annex the land? Then if you take into consideration the shortage of vacant land suitable for commercial development you can see there are problems for much of that area.
Snohomish County will tell you that they are the one government agency with the expertise to do “Comprehensive Planning” because they have the resources to do the job right. There is no doubt they had the resources, but they didn’t have the long term view of the area in mind when they “planned” for the area.
If they had considered the long term needs of the community when they developed the area, it might make sense for either Everett or Mill Creek to take on the residential liability along with the commercial benefit. With Snohomish County, “long term planning” is a misnomer.
The potential Everett annexation is/was huge, but the remaining urban development that already exists but not included in the current consideration is the really big gorilla. What sense will there be for any city to take on that area?
Mukilteo faces the same issue in their recent declaration to annex south to Norma Beach Road. Is there enough of an asset to take on the liability?
Lake Stevens faces a similar dilemma around Frontier Village. How will the city pay for services in a huge geographic area with limited ability to expand commercial? Why would they take on responsibility for residential areas as far away as Calvalero’s Corner without the ability to pay for them with some form of commercial revenue stream?
For Snohomish County, selling building permits was the short term revenue source they needed to cover their budget. Approving plats and collecting fees was their motivation. As far as I can tell, it has always been about getting the money before a city. If they were really concerned about the long term health of the area they would have been doing joint planning with the cities to make sure there was continuity with other local plans. That didn’t happen. They just picked the cherries.
So many negative images come to mind when I think about how painful it will be to fix all that damage. There needs to be some incentive for cities to take on these unfunded liabilities, but there don’t seem to be too many on the horizon.
If you think that we can just go on without addressing this issue just wait until the new roads need to be repaired or the residents ask about other urban services.
I am open to suggestions.
No Loss for Words 
I hear the call, don’t you?
by Steve DanaAs I worked my way through the decision making process to run for elective office, I found that I needed more substance in my personal political philosophy. It was not that I didn’t have thoughts and ideas; the problem was that I lacked organization of those ideas in a coherent philosophy. My quest over the past months has been to define my position through exploration of issues in my blog. I have been able to observe how current elected officials are handling the business of the county and offering both criticism and ideas. It isn’t good enough to just recognize something that isn’t working. Elected officials need to come to the table with alternative solutions for problems.
In the process of my exploration, I also needed to sort out where I fit in the partisan world.
Government is the framework that enables us to manage our everyday lives apart from the spiritual. Government at state and federal levels often tackles large social issues ripe for public debate. Even though I have my own ideas about them, I prefer to restrict my government involvement to the nuts and bolts at the city and county government level. The discourse is more often than not driven by data rather than beliefs. I am more comfortable there.
In the partisan political arena, moral issues shape political discussion for both major parties. Unfortunately, ETHICS does not play a larger part in the debate.
Republicans tend to wear their religious beliefs on their sleeves and incorporate religion into their everyday lives. Democrats don’t place their religious beliefs as high on their priority scale as Republicans. That is not to say that they are not good “Christians”, just different.
For me, personal choices should remain personal. I am not an advocate of government interfering in personal decisions people make unless those decisions adversely impact someone else’s life or property. That debate can rage on forever.
Criminal and Civil codes are designed to regulate how we interact with one another. That is what governments do. At every level of government, our laws need to be driven by some goal or mission so we can test how they are fulfilling that mission. If we state the goal or mission up front, the intent should be clear. Unfortunately, politics is often about deception.
I have struggled on many occasions with my own efforts at determining what role government should play in our lives. Even though we often characterize government negatively, without it our lives would be chaos. The question we have to answer is how much government do we need; how much and how strong?
For me, government should be driven by that mission statement. Sadly, I don’t think we have one. We need to step back to develop a mission so we can stay on task.
Conservative politicians over the years have all advocated that government help people help themselves.
Liberals tend to want to have a hand in the hand-out. Liberals believe in redistributing wealth and subsidizing life-styles of people who don’t take care of themselves. I am not saying that some of them don’t need help, but the systems in place today use a broadcast method of distributing the benefits rather than the discrete. Government needs to be a safety net not a cash machine. Government should not be the bank, it should regulate the bank.
At the local level, government is less involved with social programs and more involved with essential services. Local governments have in their mission the provision of public safety, potable water and the general health and welfare of the citizens. City and county governments are set up to deliver services rather than change your behavior.
At the county level, public safety includes police services through the sheriff, jail services, prosecution of criminals and the courts. It is not surprising that a large part of the county budget is allocated to public safety. We fund the Sheriff (elected), the Jail (managed by the Sheriff), the Prosecutor (elected), the Clerk (elected) and the Courts under the banner of Public Safety. We have told our elected officials we want criminals in jail. That is a tall order and a price tag to match.
General Health and Welfare of our citizens includes management of the other systems of government we need to make us a civilized society. The County Executive manages general affairs of the county through departments. Public Works, managing the physical infrastructure and Planning and Development Services managing land use are a couple examples.
Other functions of our county government are carried out by dedicated departments managed by elected officials. The Assessor and the Treasurer are elected to manage essential aspects of county government.
The County Council is a body of five elected officials that develop and adopt policies that guide the departments. The council does not have hands on management responsibility for any aspects of government other than their own staff. Implementing policy is the responsibility of all the other elected officials and staff.
It is really important that we get the policies right. It is really important that we adopt the right priorities for our limited resources. It is really important that we keep county government focused on the appropriate mission.
I think my government experience in the city of Snohomish puts me in a great position to jump up to the County Council.
I started my public service through the Board of Adjustment in 1987. We reviewed Conditional Use permits and Variances. In both cases, the member’s job is to consider findings of fact, apply the law and render a decision.
I was elected to two four year terms on the Snohomish City Council in 1989 and 1993. During my eight years, I served as Mayor during five of them. Snohomish uses a Council-Manager form of government so the City Manager actually runs the day to day operations of the city. Like all council members, my elected responsibilities were to develop policies that guided the city manager and to adopt a budget that funded city activities. As Mayor, my role was to work with the Manager to develop agendas and be involved with the political aspects of city operation. Intergovernmental relations had us both working to represent the city’s interests as we worked with peer cities, Snohomish County and the State of Washington.
My involvement with Snohomish County Tomorrow Steering Committee from 1991 through 1995 brought me into close proximity with elected officials and staff members from many cities and the county. I was involved with the initial adoption of the County-Wide Planning Policies and the process of incorporating Growth Management issues into the Snohomish County Tomorrow mission. I was elected to the Executive Committee as Co-Vice Chair three times. Whether that was an indication of my leadership or the confidence in me by the committee is for others to determine.
After my years on the city council, I was appointed to the Snohomish Planning Commission. I have served in that position for almost ten years.
As a weak mayor in a full service city, I was involved with management issues for our Water Treatment plant and water distribution system, Sanitary Sewer System and the collection system. I worked with the Police Department on all aspects of our local criminal justice program. I worked with the Fire Commission members from Fire District 4 to maintain level of service for Fire and Emergency Medical response. I worked with the city manager to develop policies guiding labor negotiations with Union bargaining units. I have extensive experience working with city budget and dedicated funds.
As a City Council member, Board of Adjustment member and Planning Commission member I served in quasi-judicial capacity rendering decisions based upon the law and findings of fact.
As a business owner in Snohomish for 24 years, I have also experienced government from across the counter. I understand the ramifications of government policies when they affect services and budgets.
As a restaurant owner, I have a customer service mentality that makes me sensitive to taxpayer concerns when they come to a government counter.
As an employer, I am keenly aware of the financial impacts of payroll issues.
As a citizen with a lifetime of experience, I am prepared to do the job of Snohomish County Councilmember from District 5.
Posted in Partisan Politics, Snohomish County Council, Snohomish County Political Commentary | 5 Comments »