Annexation vote delayed to until the end of 2008 - financial issues remain as stumbling block
At the May 20 Kirkland City Council meeting, the City Council passed a motion to table Resolution 4706, relating to the decision of the Kirkland City Council not to place the question of whether to annex the Potential Annexation Areas (PAAs) on a ballot at this time. The motion was approved on a five to two vote. The result of this motion is to delay the formalization of the Council’s April 15 straw poll vote to end annexation until after the current budget deliberations have ended.
This move allows the Council to avoid the tough decision to end annexation based upon the City’s own financial analysis — Kirkland simply cannot afford annexation at this time.
Annexation will survive until the end of the year in an effort to re-work the numbers.
The City Council has tried every way possible to make annexation work, despite the ever growing financial burden projected to be placed on Kirkland citizens. Kirkland’s own budget issues are first and foremost on the Council’s minds, and unfortunately, annexation would only exacerbate those problems.
The delay of a Go/No Go decision until the end of 2008 allows for the annexation committee to further study alterations to the original annexation plan in an attempt to make it more viable. The flip side to this delay is that it severely limits the chances of any other city which may be interested in annexing the PAAs.
There is a financial carrot held out by the State of Washington as an incentive for cities to annex unincorporated portions of King County. This carrot expires in 2010 so there is a limited timeframe in which annexations can benefit from the state sales tax rebate.
If Kirkland cannot make annexation work, it would need to release the PAAs from Kirkland’s comprehensive plan. This would allow other interested cities the opportunity to annex the PAAs. Bothell is one city giving serious consideration to annexing the PAAs, but they are hindered by the City Council’s Tuesday night decision to not release. The chances of any city annexing the PAAs and taking advantage of the state funds is diminished because of this vote.
How the City Council voted
VOTING IN FAVOR OF THE MOTION TO TABLE RESOLUTION R-4706
- Mayor James Lauinger
- Deputy Mayor Joan McBride
- Dave Asher
- Tom Hodgson
- Bob Sternoff
VOTING AGAINST THE MOTION TO TABLE RESOLUTION R-4706
- Jessica Greenway
- Mary-Alyce Burleigh
The vote on Tuesday night was a reverse of course for the Council. At the April 15 annexation study session a straw poll was taken which resulted in a four to three vote against annexation (the video of the debate is available at the City’s On-Demand library). Despite the belief held by much of the Council that annexation is the good governance policy to pursue, the financial burden annexation would place upon Kirkland citizens was too great a cost to bear. The recent economic downturn only made the financial situation worse with annexation.
The majority opinion at the City Council’s April 15 annexation study session was that annexation of the PAAs would be “financially reckless” for the citizens of Kirkland.
Results of the City Council straw poll at the April 15 annexation study session
VOTING IN FAVOR OF ENDING ANNEXATION STUDY
- Mayor James Lauinger
- Jessica Greenway
- Dave Asher
- Tom Hodgson
VOTING AGAINST ENDING ANNEXATION STUDY
- Deputy Mayor Joan McBride
- Mary-Alyce Burleigh
- Bob Sternoff
Print This Article
Print This ArticleRelated Articles
5 Responses to “Annexation vote delayed to until the end of 2008 - financial issues remain as stumbling block”
Leave a Reply
Subscribe
You can subscribe by email to receive newsletter updates:
Subscribe through a RSS feed reader
Sponsored Ads
The KCC has been studying this annexation for years and they were supposed to decide last fall if they were going to give it a vote or if they were going to kill the thing. Now they are passing on the idea until this fall. One of 2 things is happening. they either are afraid to say yes to annexation because it will cost too much or they dont really want to annex. The truth is being hidden from the public.
[Reply]
I think kirkland doesn’t want to be 70k and that is fine by me. We have lots of economic power and we will shop in Bothell and be done with it. Even Mary Alice voted to let the Finn Hill get annexed by another city. I really don’t care who but someone needs to help us. Kirkland is giving up on us then at least let us go to Bothell.
[Reply]
What is happening is that the council doesn’t want to take a firm position on any controversial issue. The dithering on annexation, downtown projects, and other things has reached a point of paralysis.
[Reply]
For clarification…
To ‘rolling down the hill’ : the City’s website states that Kirkland’s population is about 48,000, the PAAs population is about 33,000. If annexation were to proceed, the total would be 81,000.
My understanding of what Mary-Alyce said at the Council meeting is that she is a strong supporter of providing better urban services to the residents of the PAA regardless of whether it is Kirkland or Bothell or someone else providing the services. Since Kirkland’s Council was against annexation on a 4 to 3 vote, she argued that Kirkland should release the PAAs from Kirkland’s Comprehensive Plan and control so that they may have a better chance of getting annexed by other cities. The City Council voted against that idea by a 5 to 2 margin and decided to hold off on releasing the PAA until after the budget is completed. Of course, you are best to speak with Council members themselves regarding their positions, and I in no way wish to imply that I know any of their positions, but that is my understanding of comments made at the Council meeting.
The City annexation website is a good source of addition information as well as http://www.onekirkland.com and http://www.savekirkland.com (the latter being a blog I previously hosted).
[Reply]
Rob’s understanding is correct, the council basically pushed off the decision to fish or cut bait. Instead, they’re going to selfishly string the PAA along until what is basically the last minute. If memory serves, there was one council member at that last meeting who was vocally against annexation, with Mary-Alyce being for, all the others were pretty wishy washy. They also seemed to bristle at the “strongly worded” King County letter, which after reading it, I don’t see why they viewed it as a threat. Basically it’s acknowledging all the analysis that the City of Kirkland has done and is asking for them to make a decisive decision. Pretty simple really. Either annex or don’t. It’s really that simple.
One of two things is going on here, either the council is going to try and sneak annexation through after the budget, or they really are totally inept at making a decisive decision about anything controversial. Watching that meeting really made me understand why there’s been so many problems in other areas. A real lack of leadership!
At this late juncture, considering we’re about to run out of time as far as the state annexation funding goes and the city stubbornly refuses to release the PAA from it’s Comprehensive Plan, other options does the PAA have?
The truth is, he City of Kirkland has an obligation to the PAA to a complete annexation when the city took the commercial districts of Juanita and Totem Lake leaving the residents of the PAA with nothing. And most of them know this.
The PAA can not incorperate itself as the PAA is made up of primarily residential areas, the majority of which already identify themselves with Kirkland, spend money in Kirkland, and already consume Kirkland’s fire services as members of the fire district.
I’d love to know what viable solution there is for the PAA. I’d also love to hear justification for taking the only two commercial districts then ignoring the UGA, especially since any incorperated residents will be able to share and spread the dept from Kirkland’s previous mismanagement of resources.
How about Kirkland gives Juanita and Totem Lake back to the PAA so it has resources to make an incorperation viable? Of course, that’ll never happen. So to all the Kirklander’s who are against, I’d like to know what your solution is for the folks in the PAA? This late in the game, there’s a pretty slim chance that another city will pick them up, especially since Kirkland won’t release them. So what is it, do the right thing and annex or is just tough luck, to bad for them?
Another thing to consider when it comes to development in Kirkland, without more sales tax revenue, the city won’t be able to continue the same level of services unless they raise other taxes, with or with out annexation. The irony of local government that most no one realizes, is that while residents will often say it’s for the people, the truth is it actually operates better with fewer residents because residents are a drain on it’s resources. That is the one argument I’ll grant the anti-annexation folks, but they never have a good explanation as to what the PAA should do without annexation. So is government’s job to provide services for all the people, or should it only be for those who already have theirs?
BTW, kudos to Mr. Butcher on how he’s been running this blog. When I saw who was behind it, I assumed it would be another anti-annexation propaganda machine. So far, he’s been very even handed with all the issues he’s reported on here. Keep up the good work, Rob!
[Reply]