Incorporation A Tough Sell In Chester Neighborhood

Leaders of the effort to form a city in the Spokane Valley predicted they’d be playing to a tough crowd when they took their show to Horizon Junior High School.

They were right.

Citizens for Valley Incorporation faced the most scrutiny yet Monday when it made its pitch before about 50 people in the school’s cafeteria.

Residents in the area surrounding the school have not supported incorporation in past elections.

Support was so low in some areas of the southern Valley that Citizens for Valley Incorporation decided to cut much of the area from the proposed city.

It was apparent at the meeting - the fifth of six town hall gatherings sponsored by incorporation supporters - that some skeptics were left inside the boundaries.

An election on the proposition will be held May 16.

Two people in particular - Bob Blum and Al Gilson - peppered incorporation leaders with questions.

Gilson said he wanted more details on the group’s proposed budget for the new city.

Citizens for Valley Incorporation estimate that a new city council could run the city of 73,000 with about $31 million now available in sales, property and shared state taxes.

Gilson said he’d like to see a mock budget for how proponents plan to spend that money, including specific line items like sewers and parks.

“What you’re really doing here is setting up a business,” he said. “I guess I’m looking for a business plan.”

As they often do, incorporation leaders pointed to the city of Federal Way, Wash., and its budget.

Federal Way, which incorporated five years ago and has a population of about 75,000, spends about $18 million a year and buys most of the city’s services from King County or private enterprises.

Incorporation proponents proposed doing the same thing.

“There’s a model,” said Howard Incorporation, Herman, attorney and co-chairman of Citizens for Valley Incorporation. Blum countered that Federal Way and the Spokane Valley are quite different.

Federal Way is smaller in area, for one thing, Blum said.

“And we get a lot of snow and ice in Eastern Washington that they don’t get over there,” Blum said. “What about snow removal?”

Herman assured the men that the $31 million would be enough.

The county currently spends about $18 million per year providing services in the Valley now, including snow removal, he said.

Gilson also was interested in the group’s plans for extending sewers in the Valley.

The county has been slow to extend sewer lines to homes in the Valley, which sits over an aquifer that provides drinking water for most of the county.

“We have a major sewer situation that we’re going to have to solve,” he said.

Sue Delucchi, a political consultant working for Citizens for Valley Incorporation, said sewers were a regional problem that would need to be addressed by all of Spokane County, not just a Valley city.

Valley residents will wind up paying the cost whether the city forms or not, she said.

“It’s going to cost us as a community,” said Delucchi, who has been active in sewer issues.

“It’s going to cost us whether we’re in the county or a new city.”

Herman said a new city would qualify for state water protection grants, as the county does, so it would be able to provide sewering as quickly as the county.

Blum, saying he was “playing devil’s advocate,” also questioned the group’s revenue estimates.

If some of the Valley’s major car dealers decided to move elsewhere or the state cut back on revenue sharing, the new government could find itself in financial straits, he said.

Howard brushed aside that argument.

“That’s the beauty of what we’re proposing,” he said.

“If you have less money, you just spend less. You don’t buy what you can’t afford.”