Incorporation Drive Hit By A Bombshell
Much to the chagrin of Valley incorporation supporters, the fate of the May 16 election date they have targeted is out of their hands.
The state Boundary Review Board and the Spokane City Council now have more control over the timing of the election than they do, frustrated incorporation backers say.
Despite the loss of control, it’s still possible that Valley voters will be going to the polls in May to decide if they want to form their own city.
“That’s what I’m planning on happening,” said Susan Winchell, the Boundary Review Board’s planner. “The board is going to put in as many hearings as possible in the coming weeks to try to meet that date.”
But at this point, incorporation backers are right to feel paranoid.
Leaders of Citizens for Valley Incorporation knew they were taking a risk late last year when they chose May 16 as their target date for a third vote on forming a new Valley city.
They want that date to capitalize on a mandate for change evident in the November general election and to keep the momentum going from their last effort to form their own city.
They made significant gains at the polls last year, when voters gave incorporation a 44 percent approval rating. Voters shot down a 1990 effort by a 2-to-1 margin.
Everything in the lengthy and complicated incorporation process had to go smoothly in order to reach that May 16 goal. But the group leaders were confident they had done everything to make sure nothing went wrong.
Voting precincts where opposition to forming a city in the Valley had been fierce were trimmed from the proposal.
So were the Kaiser Aluminum Trentwood plant and the Spokane Industrial Park, both of which bankrolled the opposition during last year’s incorporation campaign.
Incorporation backers quickly amassed the 3,200 signatures they needed to get their proposal on the ballot.
May 16 was looking good - then a bombshell from the west.
The Spokane City Council threw the incorporation campaign out of kilter with an announcement that it would ask the Boundary Review Board to alter the proposed city’s boundaries.
Spokane officials said they want the Yardley industrial area on the western edge of the proposed city cut out of the proposition.
The city has paid to extend some water lines into Yardley and plans to serve the area with sewer as well.
The request increased the work load of the review board at a juncture when time is of the essence.
Now not only must the board review the merits of the proposed city, which is still unpopular in some areas, it must also consider the fate of Yardley.
“It’s just kind of hard to tell what’s going to come out of that,” said Howard Herman, attorney for Citizens for Valley Incorporation.
The election date hinges on what decision the board makes regarding Yardley and how long it takes to make it.
If the board gives Spokane what it wants, the election can go ahead as planned.
But that is unacceptable, Herman said. Asking that Yardley be left out of the incorporation proposal is a precursor to Spokane annexing the area, he said.
Many of the special use districts that would serve the city of Spokane Valley get a lot of their money from the tax-rich Yardley area.
They would lose all that funding if Spokane annexes Yardley.
Herman and others plan to argue at a Feb. 13 hearing that the city of Spokane should butt out of Yardley.
But if the board says no to the city’s request, which is likely, the May 16 election could be jeopardized by the city appealing that decision in court, said Sue Delucchi, a political consultant working with incorporation backers.
“That’s the only way I see it being held up now,” Delucchi said.
Kaiser managed to stall an incorporation election last year by going to the courts.
Winchell said an election could go ahead even then, depending on the timing of the appeal and how quickly the court reviewed it.
A lot of “ifs” and “hows” and “maybes.”
Enough, in fact, to leave plenty of doubt in the minds of incorporation backers.
Anything could happen, and in Valley incorporation campaigns, it usually does.