Proposed City Boundaries Expected To Change

Arguments continued Thursday over the boundaries of a proposed city in the Spokane Valley, and it appeared likely at the end of the evening that the lines were likely to change.

Members of the state Boundary Review Board took nearly 2 1/2 hours of further testimony on the proposal before directing their planners to prepare an analysis of all the requested boundary changes.

There are quite a few, and board members said some of them had merit.

In all the board has listened to nearly six hours of testimony, spread over two evenings, and received more than 50 letters and other documents relating to the boundaries.

A request by the city of Spokane to exclude the industrial area known as Yardley from the boundaries of the proposed city has generated most of the debate.

The tax-rich area is located on the west end of the Valley, just east of the city limits. Spokane has extended some water lines into the area, and many view the city’s request as a prelude to annexation.

A spokeswoman for the Central Pre-Mix Concrete Co., which owns land in Yardley, asked the board to grant Spokane’s request.

Molly Murphy of Central Pre-Mix said she collected signatures from 40 business owners in the area who feel the same way she does.

“We want to stay in the county,” Murphy said. “When I was out getting signatures, I did not have one person say no, not one.”

But Valley resident John Whittenberg said he thought Spokane should butt out of Yardley, and that the move would decimate many water districts that serve the area.

Yardley was not the sole topic, nor was altering the boundaries.

Some people wanted the proposed borders left alone so badly their voices quavered as they testified.

“The problems in the Valley are Valley problems and need to be solved in the Valley,” said Stan Fahlgren, a World War II veteran and 50-year resident of the Valley.

Attorney Theodore Fournier Jr. agreed. “I think this is democracy at its best.”

Others were just as passionate in their opposition to the proposed city, gripping the podium as they implored the board to leave them out.

Herb Limbaugh, an accountant, said he wondered when the people promoting the city were going to get the message. The proposal has been defeated twice already, he said.

Irvin S. Reed, a pipefitter who lives in the Otis Orchards community, wants his neighborhood left out of the proposal.

“If we wanted to live in the city, we’d pack up and move to the city,” said Reed, who is not related to the city of Spokane planning and engineering director Irving Reed. “We don’t want no part of it.”

Review board members are now mulling who stays and who goes.

Under state law, they can shift the boundaries of the proposed city as long as they don’t affect the land area by more than 10 percent.

The board asked its staff for a lot of information on boundary changes and suggested they may mix and match some additions and deletions.

Chairwoman Sally Reynolds has scheduled a meeting for March 8 for the board to discuss altering the borders.

Supporters of the proposed city hope to hold an incorporation election, the third in five years, on May 16.