BOTHELL — City leaders decided Tuesday to push for annexing nearly a dozen areas, including neighborhoods where about 22,000 people live in unincorporated south Snohomish County.
The City Council’s 5-0 vote followed a failed grassroots annexation attempt two years ago, which got snagged on jurisdictional disputes over fire and trash service.
Since then, Bothell has made exploring annexations one of its top goals.
For Deputy Mayor Joshua Freed, it all comes down to public safety. And he thinks the city can do a better job for less money.
“They’re struggling with the amount of services they’re receiving in Snohomish County and the higher taxes they’re paying on the outside,” Freed said Wednesday. “If they come into the city, they’ll pay lower taxes and get better service.”
Bothell’s current population is 33,505 and distributed more or less equally on both sides of the King-Snohomish county line, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
The proposed annexation includes 11 separate pieces and homes for 27,000 people. About 80 percent of them live in a 5.6-square-mile area of Snohomish County.
People from that area will be able to vote on whether to join the city in November if the Boundary Review Board accepts the city’s proposal. Bothell is working to schedule a hearing date, city spokeswoman Joy Johnston said.
The 10 other pieces of the annexation, aside from a tiny sliver called Bloomberg Hill, are in King County. Those portions would be annexed through agreements or a resolution rather than an election.
If plans move forward, the effective date for annexations would be set sometime between Aug. 1, 2012, and Jan. 1, 2013.
In 2009, the Boundary Review Board ruled against a public-led campaign to bring some of the same areas into the city, saying more planning was necessary.
The hang-ups involved fire protection and whether Snohomish County or King County should handle trash from annexed areas.
King County officials say a 1980s agreement with Bothell entitled it to all of Bothell’s waste, even for areas north of the county line. Snohomish County wanted to serve those areas to keep an estimated $1.9 million in yearly revenue to help pay off investments in its solid waste infrastructure.
Now, the counties are circulating draft agreements that would let the counties keep their current service areas after annexation, Snohomish County solid waste director Matt Zybas said.
Fire districts 1 and 7 said fire protection would have suffered under the earlier annexation plan.
Those concerns still hold true for Fire District 7, which is working with Bothell to address them, district spokeswoman Autumn Waite said.
Fire District 1 is in talks with Bothell to avoid the closure of a fire station that serves areas on both inside and outside the proposed annexation area, commissioner Bob Meador said. They have discussed jointly staffing the station, a potential arrangement complicated by the fact that the fire agencies use different dispatching and paramedic services.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
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