Group Launches Another Drive For Incorporation

Yet another effort is under way to form a large city in the urban area east of Spokane.

It’s the fourth such attempt since 1990.

The proposed city, called Lilac Valley, would encompass all of Spokane County Fire District 1 and be home to about 75,000 people.

Lilac Valley would stretch roughly from the Spokane city limits on the west to the Idaho-Washington line, and go as far north as Wellesley Avenue and south to 44th Avenue.

The latest plan is similar to one voters soundly rejected in 1990, and not too different from the incorporation proposals they turned down in 1994 and last May.

Incorporation made its best showing in 1994, receiving 44 percent approval.

The only striking difference besides the name - it was Chief Joseph in 1990 and Spokane Valley in 1994 and last May - is Lilac Valley would have a council-manager government like that currently in place in Spokane.

Previous proposals called for a strong mayor form of government, in which the mayor served as city manager and could veto council decisions. An effort is underway to change Spokane to a strong mayor form of government.

A leader of the Lilac Valley campaign said Monday supporters are undaunted by past defeats.

“We feel so strongly that we want to be self-ruling out here in the Valley that we decided to try this again,” said Ed Mertens, chairman of the Community Action Committee, the group leading the latest incorporation charge.

Mertens said the issues that drove past efforts - the desire for more representation, better services and more local control - are the same.

He said he thinks his group can do a better job convincing voters of the merits of incorporation.

“We’re going to be much more thorough,” said Mertens, who recently took a trip to Federal Way, Wash., to gather information about that city’s successful incorporation about five years ago.

Mertens said he hopes for an election next summer. To qualify for the ballot, Lilac Valley supporters have six months to gather the signatures of 10 percent of registered voters within the city’s boundaries - about 3,500 names.

But critics question the timing and the wisdom of trotting out another incorporation proposal now.

Valley voters are in a foul mood these days when it comes to government reform, said Steve Hasson, a county commissioner who has supported past incorporation campaigns. Their feelings were evident earlier this year when they shredded both incorporation and city-county consolidation at the polls, he said.

The Lilac Valley proposal won’t do anything to assuage that anger, Hasson said. “They’re going to be even more angry,” he added. “They just said no twice. They said no to incorporation and they said no to the (city-county) charter.”

Leaders of two other campaigns aimed at forming smaller cities in the Valley said Monday they are upset that Mertens’ group is moving ahead now.

Both the proposed cities of Opportunity and Evergreen are inside the borders of Lilac Valley.

Incorporation is complicated enough without having competing proposals, said Ed Meadows and Vivienne Latimer.

“I think it’s going to muddy up the waters,” said Meadows, who’s leading the effort to form Opportunity, a city of about 16,000. “I wish they hadn’t done it.”

Latimer, a leader in the Evergreen campaign, agreed. “We had a plan going here, and we were hoping that everyone would go along with us,” she said. “Now they’ve confused everybody. I think they’re premature.”

Mertens said he hopes to convince Latimer, Meadows and the leaders of two other small Valley incorporation efforts to abandon their campaigns and join his.

That’s not likely.

“We’re just going to go ahead with ours,” Latimer said.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WHAT’S NEXT The state Boundary Review Board will hold a public meeting Monday on the proposal to form the city of Lilac Valley. The meeting will run from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the basement training room of Valley Fire Station 1, 10319 E. Sprague.