Letter from the Community

 

The following are letters from the community showing support for annexation. These have been reposted with permission of the author.

 

I’m astounded that the anti-annexation group continues to question what will happen to property taxes in the PAA after annexation. There is no question — property taxes will go down. Kirkland’s property tax levy is $1.03 per thousand, and the debt service on existing bonds is $0.11 per thousand, a total of $1.14 per thousand. Parcels in the PAA will no longer pay the county road tax of $1.59 per thousand, or the Fire District 41 levy of $0.90 per thousand (or, for homes east of 124th Ave NE, the Woodinville Fire levy or benefit charge, which is even higher). The rest of our property taxes stay the same, but it is undeniable that property taxes WILL go down. Katherine’s idea that this is just an “average” is mistaken — EVERY parcel will see this decrease. And so long as the legislature leaves I-747 in place, total property tax collected by the city can’t increase by more than 1% per year without voter approval.
 
Yes, we will pay a utility tax, which for the average family will add up to almost as much as the savings in property tax. But it’s also possible, if we stay unincorporated, that King County will succeed in their efforts in the legislature to be allowed to charge a county utility tax in areas inside the urban growth boundary, including our PAA. The legislature is serious about getting areas like ours annexed into cities, and will continue to take measures to encourage such annexations; allowing the county to charge us a utility tax is a distinct possibility.
 
Bob questions my motives for supporting annexation. I’ll decline to respond in-kind to his ad hominem attacks, but will gladly say that my primary motivation for supporting annexation is, and always has been, to obtain better police coverage than we’re getting now from King County. The King County Sheriff is quite clear that they assign just 3/4ths of an FTE — less than one full-time officer — to patrolling the PAA. In the event of serious emergencies, we do indeed get help from adjoining jurisdictions. But we rarely see a patrol car just checking on the security of our neighborhoods. Response to car prowls, loud parties, trespassing, and other non-violent crimes is non-existent or greatly delayed. If you do have a burglary, they’ll take a report so you can file for your insurance, but that’s about it — don’t expect the crime to actually be investigated. The initial proposals from the Kirkland Police for coverage in the PAA were greatly exaggerated — they proposed having as many patrol districts in the PAA as there currently are in the entire city, essentially doubling the size of the department. Even those of us in the PAA said that was too much, and asked the department to rework the plan so that we would have coverage similar to what the existing city has now — roughly one patrol officer for each 10,000 in population. And that’s the plan now. Compared to the level of service we currently have from the county — 3/4ths of an officer for 33,000 people – having three officers for 33,000 people is a huge improvement.
 
State law requires that fire and EMS response be at least as good as it was before annexation. For the Con committee to continue saying that response times would increase is to say that the City of Kirkland would knowingly and willfully violate state law. It just won’t happen. The Con committee wants you to think people will die if annexation occurs; that is simply false.
 
Some people in the PAA looked forward to annexation as a way to shut down the Casino Caribbean. It’s true that the city council has passed a non-binding resolution saying they plan to allow the casino to remain open. As for a second casino, my understanding is that King of Clubs Casino allowed their temporary card room license to expire today — and so they would not be eligible for grandfathering under SB5321. The key point, as I wrote in my original posting, is that if we remain unincorporated, then there’s NO LIMIT to the number of casinos that can open in the PAA. Any resident who wants to see the number of casinos capped should support annexation.
 
The idea that the PAA could form its own town or city has been fully explored and abandoned for good reasons. Our area is nearly fully built out as a residential area. Unless there’s a plan to tear down entire neighborhoods and replace them with commercial areas, the PAA does not and cannot generate enough revenue to support itself as an independent municipality. We do generate enough revenue to enable an existing city to annex and provide a reasonable level of services to us through economies of scale. That’s exactly what’s proposed now.
 
The idea that we could be annexed into Kenmore, Bothell, or Woodinville is a chimera. Both Woodinville and Kenmore declined to even look at annexing any part of our area. Bothell looked at it, and decided against it. Perhaps the county or the state could carve up our area and force those cities to annex us, but is that what we want — to be carved up and annexed off in pieces? Most everyone I talk to in the PAA likes having a Kirkland address and wants it to stay that way. (And, by the way, Woodinville’s council is as dysfunctional as Kirkland’s — you should watch their webcasts sometime).
 
The people of the PAA should not make this decision based on the antics or fiscal record of the current Kirkland City Council. There will be at least two new members on the council this year, possibly more. There will be another opportunity for change in 2011, and every two years after that. Councils come and councils go. The PAA will have far more control over its destiny within the city than we will ever have trying to influencing the King County Council, which is dominated by Seattle interests and likely to continue to be that way for decades. If we want to have more control over the government that provides services to our neighborhoods, we should vote YES on annexation and try to change the Kirkland City Council to be to our liking, rather than taking our chances that King County Councilmembers representing Seattle will do what’s right for us.
 
Toby Nixon

Advertisement