City Would Be Among Biggest
The state Office of Financial Management reported this week that Vancouver now is Washington’s seventh largest city, having passed Yakima as of Feb. 28.
The honor may be short-lived, depending on how Valley residents vote on incorporation May 16. Early estimates put the Spokane Valley city at about 73,000, well ahead of Vancouver (population 64,350) and in a tight race with Federal Way (73,501), which now is in sixth place.
The top five, in descending order, are: Seattle, 531,400; Spokane, 186,311; Tacoma, 182,800; Bellevue, 100,638; Everett, 78,240.
Trimming the trough
The way Joe McKinnon sees it, “county government is bloated and out of control,” and Valley residents are partly to blame.
Valley voters could have saved county taxpayers a ton of money in personnel costs by voting to form a city in the Valley back in 1990 or last year.
At a recent incorporation gathering, the cochairman of Citizens for Valley Incorporation displayed a list containing the names of the nearly 2,000 county employees.
Several hundred of them have been added since the unsuccessful 1990 and 1994 incorporation votes, McKinnon said.
Many of those workers wouldn’t have been needed had the city formed, he added.
Nearly 1,000 new positions have been added in county government since 1985, when a legal challenge kept the incorporation proposal from reaching the polls, McKinnon said.
“We could have kept them at 1,100 if we had voted to incorporate back then,” McKinnon said. “Can you imagine?”
More endorsements
The Spokane Valley Business Association is throwing its support behind the incorporation effort.
The board of directors of the organization voted unanimously last week to endorse the effort to form a city in the Valley.
“Valley people would best be served through establishing their own level of representation - a new city,” the group said in a statement released last week.
The association was formed two years ago by a group of Sprague corridor businessmen who oppose county plans to build a new commuter road called the South Valley Arterial on the Old Milwaukee Railroad right-of-way.
If Valley voters approve forming a city, the new government would have jurisdiction over the right-of-way, and the future of the arterial.
Meeting update
The final two town hall meetings sponsored by Citizens for Valley Incorporation are scheduled for next week.
One will be Monday at Horizon Junior High, 1319 S. Pines. The other is scheduled for Tuesday at North Pines Junior High, 701 N. Pines. Both meetings begin at 7 p.m.
Incorporation supporters will make a presentation on their proposal and answer questions from the public regarding the proposed city.