Bill would ease annexations
OLYMPIA – A bill awaiting a vote in the Washington Senate would make it easier for some cities, including Spokane, to annex property.
House Bill 2483 would reduce the share of landowners required to approve a “direct petition” annexation to 60 percent from the current 75 percent in all cities. Spokane is one of the few cities in the state that requires the 75 percent threshold.
Proponents say the two-tiered system makes no sense and there’s no reason for a higher threshold for some cities.
“It’s not a land grab at all,” said Susan Ashe, Spokane’s director of legislative affairs. “It’s a matter of fairness and equity, in our opinion.”
Requiring 60 percent “is still almost a supermajority,” she said. Ashe said she knows of no imminent annexation plans by the city.
But some local fire commissioners are sweating over the bill, which passed the House last month. They say it could make it easier for tax-hungry cities to annex parts of fire districts, stripping them of critical revenue – and leaving residents waiting longer for fire engines to arrive.
“I just want the citizens to know what’s going on,” said Spokane County Fire District 8 Commissioner Jonathan Ferraiuolo, a Spokane businessman.
Ferraiuolo says the matter is not as simple as it might seem. In many cases, he says, developers seeking water rights have to sign agreements to request annexation when possible. Those agreements become part of the covenants on the property, he said, binding future owners even if they don’t want to be annexed.
Ferraiuolo says lawmakers seem to think protection – in the form of 60 percent approval – would still be in place, when many of those “approvals” may come from people who have no real say in the matter.
“They’re making it sound like you have to go through all the hoops,” he said, when in fast-developing areas, cities may already have much of the 60 percent they would need through covenants.
There’s nothing nefarious about that, said Dave Williams, a lobbyist for the Association of Washington Cities. The process has been in place since the 1940s, and is “long-standing, fully legal, and has been challenged and tested in court.” And it’s always spelled out on the deed, he said.
Ferraiuolo and other fire district officials have been trying to stop the proposal and get out the word to homeowners.
“Decisions are made by people who show up,” he said. “And a lot of people don’t know to show up.”
Why would a fire district care? Ferraiuolo says his district is worried about being stripped of property-rich areas.
Trying to head that off, the state fire commissioners association got House Bill 2938 introduced in Olympia, with sponsors including Reps. Alex Wood, D-Spokane, and Lynn Schindler, R-Otis Orchards.
It would have required cities to tell people the likely effects – such as any changes in expected fire-response times – of such an annexation. It also would have forced the cities to absorb the fire district employees so they wouldn’t lose their jobs. But HB 2938 appears stalled in a Senate committee.