Shedding some light on the yes annexation vote| Letter

Published 4:45 pm Monday, October 24, 2011

This is to shed light on the yes on annexation vote.

All areas required by the state Growth Management Act (GMA) are to be annexed. It is a matter of when, and we, the people living in the proposed North, East, West (NEWBA) area, have been working for many years to bring this to a vote. We started by asking for and meeting with the elected officials in Snohomish County, city of Brier and Bothell (Kenmore said they would not cross the county line). We determined our best interests would be better served by the city of Bothell. We then began working with the various departments to achieve this. This took 10 years-plus to get to this: the vote. We carried petitions to our fellow residents and obtained more than enough registered voters to get to the Boundary Review Board.

Problems were raised and solved.

It is not about Bothell’s “cash cow” land grab and the “select” taxing districts. The NEWBA area has different taxes and taxing rates. With annexation, we would all be under the same taxing rates. All will be lower than our current rates. Police response will be much faster than our current level. Fire response will be at the level for Bothell. All levels of service would improve with Bothell. We would also have more local control of the elected officials. Discussion of the EMS service in Lake Forest Park or Kirkland is not part of the annexation issue.

For the no annexation, it is about fire-district chiefs losing their jobs. It is about builders who want slack building codes and jobs. Perhaps the “aginers” want to keep dumping their trash on the roadsides. The Young report they cite was prepared at taxpayer expense to save the fire-district chiefs’ jobs. However, the Boundary Review Board rejected that argument.

I think it reflects poorly on the “Bothell No” faction to destroy and steal our yes signs. Please join us, your fellow residents, in voting yes for annexation.

Marvin Dawson