City Is No Solution Election Results Made It Clear That Residents Of The Valley Do Not Want To Be Part Of A City

Valley incorporation supporter Al Dietzman stood in the fading twilight of the University City parking lot Tuesday and fretted.

Results of the incorporation vote, which ended just a half hour before, were streaming into a temporary office set up in the back of a Ryder rental truck.

They soon would be transported to the Spokane County Courthouse 10 miles away, and Dietzman was wondering if he should ride along with them.

“Just so they don’t make any unscheduled stops,” Dietzman said as he glanced at county elections workers sorting ballots in the back of the truck.

A bystander made a joke about the possibility of hijackers ambushing the big yellow truck.

“It could happen,” said Dietzman, a hardworking volunteer for Citizens for Valley Incorporation. “It could.”

By that point, though, the damage was done.

Not by masked bandits intent on disrupting the democratic process, but by the very voters Dietzman and other incorporation supporters were confident would push their third effort to form a city in the Valley over the top.

Their proposition was hijacked at the ballot box.

The election wasn’t even close, with 59 percent of the nearly 15,000 voters saying “no.”

Last year, only 56 percent voted against the proposal.

Of the 57 voting precincts taking part in Tuesday’s decision, only five went in favor of the proposition.

In April 1994, incorporation carried 11 of 61 precincts.

Many voters said Tuesday they opposed the proposition because they thought it would form another layer of government and cause taxes to increase.

There are problems in the Valley, but forming a city that leaves out major parts of the community isn’t the way to fix them, many said.

“If we’re going to do anything, we should all get together,” said one man who voted against the proposition.

The defeat was a crushing blow to Citizens for Valley Incorporation and left the group’s leaders wondering if they missed their best chance.

Citizens for Valley Incorporation campaigned smarter and harder this year than in either of the two previous elections, held in 1990 and 1994.

The group gerrymandered the boundaries of the most recent proposal to exclude areas where support was low in past elections.

Group leaders employed a new campaign strategy, holding town hall meetings throughout the Valley and going door-to-door to explain their proposal.

They leaned heavily on the example set by Federal Way, Wash., which incorporated five years ago and has managed to keep property taxes relatively low.

It didn’t work.

“We lost votes in every precinct,” Herman said.

In the Edgecliff 3 precinct, which runs between Park Road and the Dishman Hills Natural Area, the proposition soured like milk left out on a hot day.

Last year, 40 percent of Edgecliff 3 voters supported incorporation. This year, only 26 percent did.

It was a similar story in the Greenacres precinct, where support dropped from 44 percent last year to 35 percent this time.

Support went south even in the few precincts where the measure won approval last year.

In Opportunity 2, approval slipped from nearly 58 percent in 1994 to 55 percent on Tuesday.

Opponents and political observers said the supporters’ strategy, especially the gerrymandering and Federal Way comparison, backfired.

Denny Ashlock, a long-time Valley businessman and political activist, said the boundaries became a major issue.

Many high-density neighborhoods - such as Painted Hills, Ponderosa and Bella Vista - were not included in the proposed city.

“A lot of places that need help were left out,” Ashlock said.

Dick Denenny, chairman of Concerned Citizens Against Valley Incorporation, agreed.

Citizens Against raised and spent nearly $30,000 in two weeks.

The group made the boundaries a big issue in newspaper, television and radio ads, saying that the Valley would be divided by incorporation “like it has never been divided before.”

It also questioned the comparison to Federal Way, pointing out that city leaders there were bracing for projected revenue shortfalls.

Despite the sound beating, supporters could bring the proposal back to the ballot within a year because it got more than 40 percent approval.

Larry Wendel, who chaired Citizens for Valley Incorporation’s sign committee, hinted that they might.

“I think there is another chance,” Wendel said on election night, after the votes were counted. “I’m not disillusioned at this.”

But co-chairman Howard Herman said it probably will be several years, if ever, before incorporation is viable again.

Most people now will be turning their attention to a proposal by county freeholders to consolidate Spokane city and county governments, he said.

The freeholders are in the final stages of a two-year effort to draft their proposal and are expected to forward it for voters’ consideration this fall.

“It seems to me that it would be foolhardy until the freeholders’ proposition is dead,” Herman said.

The state Growth Management Act also is on the table.

Local officials will be spending considerable time over the next two years implementing the policies of that act, including drawing up areas where urban development will be allowed to continue, he said.

It probably makes sense to wait until they’re finished before forging ahead, Herman said.

Maybe it makes sense to drop it all together, he added, saying Valley residents may be too conservative to ever vote to form their own city.

Herman and fellow co-chairman Joe McKinnon said they would not lead the campaign if or when incorporation resurfaces.

“If it goes again, it will have to be with some new people,” Herman said. “I’m going into retirement tomorrow.”

That’s welcome news to incorporation opponents and others who think the Valley’s problems should be solved on a regional level.

While the vote was a solid rejection of incorporation, it wasn’t a mandate for the status quo, Ashlock said.

Most people realize that county government isn’t providing adequate service or representation in the Valley, he said.

But that’s true in the entire Valley, not just within the boundaries of the proposed city, Ashlock said.

Everyone in the Valley should have a say in how things are repaired, he added.

“We need to work together to get the positives identified and go from there,” Ashlock said.

Maybe the freeholders hold the answer, Denenny said.

“We need to let ourselves listen to what they plan to bring to the table,” he said. “If it’s something we can work with, great. If not, there are other solutions, like maybe adding two more county commissioners.

“Whatever we decide to do, it should be inclusive of all the Valley.”