Incorporation Supporters Call City Request `Land Grab’

Irving Reed walked into enemy territory Monday night and did not escape unscathed.

The city of Spokane’s planning and engineering director and the Spokane City Council were the targets of biting criticism at a hearing before the state Boundary Review Board on a proposal to form a city in the Spokane Valley.

Nearly 200 people, most of them incorporation supporters, attended the meeting at North Pines Junior High School in the Valley.

Everyone who got a chance to speak, except Reed, blasted a request by Spokane to alter the boundaries of the proposed city.

The City Council asked the review board to exclude the Yardley industrial area on the western end of the Valley from the proposal.

City officials have said they want to protect 60,000 feet of water line they have extended into Yardley and ensure that sewer service is eventually extended there as well.

Spokane plans to run sewer lines into the area in 1997. No annexation of the area is imminent, city officials have said.

But incorporation supporters and officials from several special service districts that serve the Yardley area, including the Spokane Valley Fire District, disagreed.

Annexation is the only reason the city would make such a request, they told review board members, and the request circumvents Yardley residents’ right to choose their form of government.

Sue Delucchi, who spoke on behalf of Citizens for Valley Incorporation, started a long parade of critics who questioned the city’s motives.

The procession included County Commissioner Steve Hasson, Valley Fire Chief Karl Bold and Ray Murphy, executive director of the Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Delucchi, a former chairwoman of the review board, called the city’s action a “land grab.” She said annexation waivers that the city forces water patrons to sign amount to “extortion.”

By signing the waivers, water customers agree not to oppose eventual annexation.

“What they really mean is it’s not an attempted annexation at this specific moment in time,” Delucchi said. “Don’t be fooled. This action is absolutely a prelude to annexation.”

But Reed insisted that the council does not plan to annex the area soon.

He also struck a blow of his own, pointing out that 67 percent of the voters in the Yardley area voted against a Valley incorporation issue that was on the ballot last April.

“So much for the will of the people,” he said.

The attack on Reed and the city went on for nearly three hours, with only half the people who wished to speak getting the chance.

The review board, which may alter the incorporation boundaries by as much as 10 percent, voted to continue the hearing to Feb. 23.

That meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the county public works building, W1026 Broadway.

This is the third time the Citizens for Valley Incorporation group has tried to form a city in the Valley.

Two other attempts, one in 1990 and another last year, were shot down at the polls.

The group has significantly trimmed the borders of the proposed city in this attempt and hopes to have an election on May 16.

Co-chairman Joe McKinnon told the review board that his group keeps trying because many Valley residents are not satisfied with county government and want local control.

“Unquestionably, the county has shown it cannot provide adequate urban services in the Valley,” he said.

If voters approve the proposed city of 64,800, it would be the seventh-largest in Washington.