Plans Forging Ahead For Mead Incorporation

Plans to incorporate the city of Mead are moving ahead, despite opposition from the same group that stopped a similar plan five years ago.

Committees are being organized to research incorporation details including planning, schools, finance and public utilities.

The state Boundary Review Board is hosting an open house and public meeting Monday evening to answer questions and hear concerns about the proposal.

About 50 people, a mix of neighborhood organizers, real estate brokers, business owners and opponents gathered at Mead High School last Thursday to hear the details of the proposed incorporation from Jack and Julie Dein, who filed the incorporation proposal, and Lila Howe, a resident of the Whitworth area who supports forming the new city.

“It’s in my heart that we press forward with this,” Julie Dein told the gathering. “County government is writing off our North Side area.”

Howe says a large chunk of the area marked for urban growth by county commissioners, as far north as Hawthorne Road, will soon be annexed by the city of Spokane.

“Very soon we are quite likely to be a part of the city of Spokane, and our taxes will be going to the city,” she said.

Ella Wynhoff lives on Crestline and was part of the 1992 incorporation effort. That proposal involved smaller boundaries and a smaller population.

“People told us we were using scare tactics when we said the same thing five years ago,” she said, about the annexation. “And now everything across the street from me is in the city. Look real careful people, because it’s coming.”

Assistant city planner Chris Hugo said the city has no plans to annex any north county areas.

“Our growth interests are not to the north,” he said. “Our proposed growth is within the existing city.

“Annexation has to be supported by the people, and the people in Linwood don’t want to be annexed,”

The area near Wynhoff’s home, the Calkins Addition, was annexed by the city two years ago.

Some at the meeting, including Kathy Konis, who has turned the old Peone Grange hall into her home, asked to be left outside the boundaries.

“I have everything I want. I don’t want to be incorporated into a city to pay for services I don’t need,” she said.

Howe agreed that the boundaries stretch too far into the eastern farmland and said they can be adjusted. “We set the boundaries to give people an opportunity to be a part of the city,” she said.

Sharon Schaffer, who lives near Peone Road, opposes incorporation. She fought the 1992 incorporation and vows to fight again.

“I get no benefits, there won’t be enough tax base to operate the city, and it’s going to be all residential, with a few minor commercial things,” she said.

But others are excited about the possibility of a new city.

Dixie Randock, owner of Randock Realty, which has an office in Mead, urged her agents to attend the meeting.

“I really hope it goes through. It would be just great,” she said. “The people who live there should be allowed to make decisions about their own community.”

There are still some legal questions about boundaries. The proposed boundaries include some areas outside the urban growth areas.

Susan Winchell, a planner with the Boundary Review Board, said the board is obligated by law to remove any area outside the urban growth boundaries from the proposed city.

But Julie Dein says her researchers say growth management has nothing to do with incorporation, and Mead boundaries may include land outside the urban growth area.

“We are going to carry this as far as we possibly can,” she says. “I believe the legal issue has been resolved.” , DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MEETING MONDAY The Boundary Review Board will present an open house and public meeting about the incorporation of the city of Mead on Monday at Northwood Junior High School, 13120 N. Pittsburg. The informational open house begins at 5:30 p.m. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. and will last about an hour.