The Incorporation Vote Questions & Answers
AN INCORPORATION PRIMER
Q. What does incorporation mean?
A. Currently the Valley is an unincorporated community, meaning it is governed by Spokane County. If voters approve incorporation on May 16, most of the Valley would become a city, with its own council.
Q. Who can vote on incorporation?
A. Registered voters who live within the boundaries of the proposed city. It’s too late to register.
Q. What will it take for incorporation to pass?
A. Approval by a simple majority of voters within the boundaries of the proposed city. The election is valid no matter how many voters show up at the polls.
Q. Can backers try again if the proposal fails?
A. Voters probably will decide in November whether to consolidate Spokane city and county governments. If that proposal passes, another incorporation vote will not be possible.
Otherwise, proponents can put incorporation on the ballot as many times as they please. They must wait three years between votes if a proposal is not approved by at least 40 percent of voters.
Incorporation drives in some Western Washington communities failed three or four times before passing at the polls.
Q. Have any Washington communities incorporated recently?
A. Residents of nine West Side communities voted to incorporate since 1989. They are: Federal Way and SeaTac in 1989; Woodinville and Burien in 1992; Newcastle (formerly Newport Hills) in 1993; Shoreline and University Place in 1994; and Lakewood and Edgewood last month.
Q. If incorporation is approved, when would the city be formed and what would happen in the meantime?
A. State law allows up to a year for the city to elect a council and hire staff before it is recognized by the state.
Spokane County would provide services in the meantime, but the new city council would have authority to sign contracts and make other decisions.
It could, for instance, place a moratorium on new construction until the city writes zoning codes and a comprehensive plan for growth. The council could pay for its work with money borrowed from future tax collections.
Q. Who could run for office in the new city?
A. Any registered voter who had lived within the city boundaries for at least a year.
Q. How much would elected officials earn?
A. Initially, the mayor’s salary would be $1,250 a month. Council members would earn $400. The salaries could be changed by a vote of the city council.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CITY
Q. What type of government would the city have?
A. It would be governed by seven council members and a “strong” mayor.
That system makes the mayor responsible for duties handled by the city manager in cities such as Spokane, which has a council-manager government. In addition, the mayor could veto council decisions.
The city’s first officials would be elected at large; the city council then would decide whether to designate districts, which future council members would represent.
Q. The ballot title says Spokane Valley would be a “non-charter code city.” What does that mean?
A. Such cities operate under a state code giving them authority to adopt their own guidelines on matters not specifically addressed by state law. Otherwise, the city would need legislative approval to change operating procedures.
Q. What is the name of the proposed city?
A. Incorporation boosters - who blamed the name, Chief Joseph, for failure of the 1990 incorporation proposal - picked the name Spokane Valley for the 1994 attempt. They stuck with it this year.
Q. How many employees would the city need?
A. That depends on which services the city provides itself and which it pays other agencies to perform.
The city would not need librarians or firefighters, for instance, if it paid the Spokane County Library District and Fire District 1 to provide them.
The same is true with road workers, parks employees and police officers - but only if the city could purchase a contract for such services.
Federal Way, which receives some services from King County and other providers, has 122 employees and expects to add 10 more by the end of the year. It may form its own police department this year, a move that would increase its payroll significantly.
REPRESENTATION IN THE NEW CITY
Q. How would a city change the Valley’s political representation?
A. County commissioners now are the only local elected officials who represent Valley residents. Commissioners are elected in a countywide vote, and there is no guarantee anyone from the Valley will hold a commission seat. (Currently, one of the three county commissioners lives in the Valley.)
Under incorporation, the new city would elect its own mayor and seven council members. Valley residents would continue to vote in county commission elections.
Q. Would legislative and county commission districts change if the Valley incorporates?
A. The proposed city is entirely within the boundaries of the 4th Legislative District. That district would not change, nor would county commission districts.
Q. Would Valley residents have greater input on decisions required by the state’s Growth Management Act?
A. The act requires counties and cities to plan ahead for growth. The work is done by a committee that includes county commissioners, Spokane City Council members and representatives from small towns. The Valley, which has non-voting seats on the committee, likely would gain at least one voting member.
Q. Would the city have members on other regional agencies?
A. Along with five representatives divided among the county commission and the Spokane City Council, the Spokane Transit Authority board includes one member each from Medical Lake, Airway Heights, Cheney and Millwood. State law limits the board to nine members and requires STA to review its board structure if a new city forms within its service area.
The board for the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority must include two county commissioners, one Spokane council member, one person to represent all other cities and a fifth “at-large” member chosen by the other four. Spokane Valley would compete for the seat provided for smaller cities; its residents and elected officials could apply for the at-large position.
The health district board includes county commissioners, three Spokane City Council members and two representatives from other cities. However, a change in state law gives control of the health district to county commissioners at the end of this year. The commissioners will determine the makeup of the board.
WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS?
Q. Could the city of Spokane take over the Valley if incorporation fails?
A. Backers warn that if incorporation fails Spokane will annex at least some Valley neighborhoods.
Many residents west of Park Road waived their right to fight annexation when the city provided them with water or sewer. The city could easily annex those neighborhoods, and took the first step toward doing so by asking the Boundary Review Board to eliminate that portion of the Valley from the proposed city. The board rejected that request.
In all other cases, however, cities can only annex adjacent neighborhoods if the residents give their blessing, either by ballot or by petition.
The state’s Growth Management Act states that urban areas should be within cities and directs cities to designate areas where they’re likely to expand. There’s little doubt urban areas of the Valley will fall within Spokane’s future growth boundaries if the Valley does not incorporate.
The act does not, however, streamline the annexation process.
Q. Would annexation be bad for the Valley?
A. Some Valley residents oppose annexation; others do not. Valley residents who oppose annexation say the Valley is a distinct, separate community and would not be treated fairly by Spokane’s city government.
Annexation would hurt Valley Fire District and the Spokane County Library District because taxes that now go to those districts would go to the city instead.
People who favor annexation say Spokane and the Valley would have more clout if they were one community rather than two.
Q. Could Millwood annex the Valley if a new city is not incorporated?
A. The Valley’s only incorporated town could annex neighborhoods only by going through the same lengthy process described above.
Millwood officials say they have no desire to make their small town a large one. The town has annexed one small neighborhood and rejected several other annexation proposals in recent years.
Q. How would incorporation be affected by the proposal to consolidate city and county governments?
A. Voters in 1992 elected 25 freeholders to suggest changes in local government. Those freeholders plan to ask voters this November to consolidate Spokane city and county.
If Valley residents form a city and consolidation passes, the new city would disappear along with the city of Spokane. If Valley residents reject incorporation, consolidation would rule out any future incorporation votes.
RECREATIONAL FACILITIES
Q. Would the city take over county parks in the Valley?
A. There are eight parks within the boundaries of the proposed city. County Commissioner Phil Harris said the county probably would give them to the new city, although it wouldn’t be obligated to do so. The county could sell the parks to the city or keep them and charge the city for their upkeep. It could sell the parks on the open market.
Q. What about golf courses, the fairgrounds and the zoo?
A. The county probably wouldn’t give up the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds since it turns a profit.
Walk in the Wild zoo is run by a private zoological society and would not be affected by incorporation. The zoo will lose its lease at the end of the summer, and must move to a new location or close.
Dishman Hills Natural Area is outside the incorporation boundaries. There are no golf courses within the boundaries of the proposed city.
THE EFFECT ON TAXES
Q. What would happen to taxes in the Valley?
A. Eastern Washington University researcher Tony Anderson concluded in 1990 that a city would not have to raise taxes as long as services did not change in the Valley. Taxes would increase if Valley residents wanted more police protection, more parks or other improvements, he said.
County officials say Anderson underestimated the cost of city government. Incorporation backers say he underestimated the city’s revenue.
Residents of the city of Federal Way pay slightly lower taxes than neighbors in surrounding unincorporated areas. City officials there plan to ask residents later this year to tax themselves to pay for improvements to roads and parks. That would increase property taxes in the Western Washington city.
Q. Would property taxes change if the Valley incorporates?
A. Valley residents now pay $1.61 to the county’s general fund for every $1,000 in assessed property value. They pay another $1.95 into a fund for road work in unincorporated areas.
Together, that’s $356 a year for the owner of a $100,000 home.
Under incorporation, the road tax would disappear, and the tax bill for that same $100,000 house would drop by $195.
Those figures don’t include property taxes for schools, libraries, and fire protection, which would not change.
Q. Could there be other taxes?
A. If the city faced a shortfall, it could impose a utility tax, or a business and occupation tax. Counties cannot impose those taxes.
Spokane’s utility tax ranges from 4 percent on natural gas to 17 percent on water, sewer and trash disposal. The tax collects $21.4 million - about 20 percent of the city’s general fund.
The business and occupation tax is popular in Western Washington cities but rarely used east of the Cascades.
Both cities and counties can impose a 4 percent tax on the price of theater tickets and other entertainment. Spokane County does not do so. Such a tax would net about $80,000 a year from the Interstate Fairgrounds alone.
Incorporation backers say they oppose new taxes. But they cannot say whether the new city would impose them.
IMPACT ON COUNTY, OTHER COMMUNITIES
Q. What would happen to Spokane County’s budget?
A. No one knows exactly how badly incorporation would hurt remaining unincorporated areas. But there is little question the county would lose more money than it currently spends in the Valley. Officials estimate the county would lose at least $10.5 million.
In addition, Spokane County could lose $2 million a year in guaranteed community development grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In recent years, the county has spent the money to help dig water wells, build sewers, feed the poor and aid the mentally ill, among other projects.
Spokane County gets the money because more than 175,000 of its residents live in unincorporated areas. If the Valley forms a city, the county would fall below that threshold.
Officials at the regional HUD office in Seattle said some counties have lost their grant guarantees under similar circumstances. Since Spokane qualified under special requirements for communities with sole-source aquifers, however, HUD officials may decide that its guarantee should not be lost, they said.
It would take an act of Congress to preserve the annual grants if HUD decided against Spokane County.
The new city probably would qualify for $500,000 to $600,000 in guaranteed grants each year, according to Spokane County community development officials.
Q. Would there be any effect on Millwood?
A. The town of Millwood would be surrounded on three sides by the new city, and by the Spokane River to the north. That would severely limit the town’s opportunities to grow, but Millwood residents in the past have not wanted their town to grow.
THE IMPACT ON REGIONAL PROJECTS
Q. Would incorporation affect the city-county garbage disposal project, with its waste-to-energy incinerator?
A. It depends on whether the new city council chose to participate in the project, and on the outcome of the inevitable lawsuits if it tried to pull out.
Rates for remaining incinerator customers would increase to cover a $2 million loss if the new city successfully dropped out of the disposal project.
The city council may decide there is no benefit to withdrawing from the project.
It now costs $45 a ton to burn trash at the incinerator and another $40 a ton to operate transfer stations, administer the program, and to close and monitor three former landfills that are on the Superfund cleanup lists.
If the city withdrew from the project, it would have to haul its garbage to an out-of-town landfill.
Q. What would be the effect on the Valley sewer project?
A. The state Board of Health requires that sewer construction continue regardless of whether the Valley incorporates.
County engineers estimate it will cost $200 million to complete the sewer work in the Valley. Whether or not the city forms, funding for the work will be a problem.
Valley incorporation leaders say sewer construction would be a top priority for the new city but have not said where the city would get most of the money needed to pay for the work.
County officials say Valley homeowners will have to shoulder more of the costs themselves regardless of whether incorporation passes.
ROADS AND OTHER PROJECTS
Q. Would the Argonne underpass still be built?
A. Yes. Spokane County recently awarded a bid to build the $10 million project. The underpass has received the official stamp of approval from the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission in Olympia and work will begin soon.
County officials say the county will likely complete the project regardless of the vote.
Q. How about the South Valley Arterial?
A. The fate of the controversial commuter link between the Interstate 90 Sprague interchange and the south-central Valley is less certain.
The leaders of the incorporation movement have been among those most vocally opposed to the $19 million arterial. County commissioners have hinted that they may scrap the project, which won approval just last year, if incorporation fails.
Q. What about improvements to I-90?
A. The state Department of Transportation retains ownership of the interstate. Improvements are funded largely by federal monies, so little is likely to change.
The DOT still has scheduled improvements between the Sprague interchange and Argonne as its top local priority. A new Sprague interchange has been designed and approved and is “on the shelf,” DOT officials say, waiting for funds.
Other projects in a 20-year plan include widening I-90 to six lanes through the Valley, rebuilding the Pines, Barker and Liberty Lake interchanges and possibly adding new interchanges at University and Evergreen.
Q. What about other state highways?
A. The state DOT controls access to Trent (State Highway 290) and Pines (State Highway 27) in unincorporated areas - meaning, “If you want to put in a driveway, you come talk to us,” a DOT official said. DOT also has a say in land-use issues that affect traffic.
A city would take over access and would issue road-approach permits for residential or commercial driveways. The city also would take over land-use planning.
PLANNING AND ZONING
Q. What effect would incorporation have on those wishing to maintain a semi-rural lifestyle in Greenacres? while.
There are two considerations, according to county planners. First, every incorporated area is an urban growth area under the state Growth Management Act. The act is designed to channel urban growth into identified urban areas before spilling over into unincorporated areas.
The act also stresses urban growth must be accompanied by urban services. It is possible that the new city could say it is unable to provide urban services to every neighborhood, leaving areas such as Greenacres semi-rural for a while.
Q. If incorporation fails, could the Valley still become an “urban growth area” under the state Growth Management Act?
A. Maybe. County commissioners say they want at least a part of the Valley to become an urban growth area.
But the Spokane County Growth Management Steering Committee would make such a decision. Commissioners sit on that committee along with representatives from all the cities and towns in the county, so their desires could be over-ridden.
The state Legislature has amended the act to allow counties to do so, but the governor has yet to sign it.