By Susanna Ray
Herald Writer
OLYMPIA — Community Transit filled up a bus with local officials and activists and headed to Olympia on Tuesday to take one more stab at getting the Legislature to help them merge with Everett Transit.
It’s an issue that just won’t go away.
But Tuesday was the first time it got a hearing in the House. HB2594 would require a countywide vote by September 2003 on whether ET and CT should merge. If the measure failed, ET would have to start paying CT for CT’s bus routes in Everett.
"This is a battle that’s been going on in Snohomish County for 25 years," said Rep. Dave Schmidt, R-Bothell, who sponsored a similar bill last year that went nowhere, along with a plan to essentially divert state funds intended for Everett to CT instead.
This year’s bill, sponsored by Rep. Jeanne Edwards, D-Bothell, who used to be on CT’s board, no longer gives ET an option of choosing to put it on the ballot or pay, as Schmidt’s bill did.
The action has changed this year, too, from the Senate, where Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, had given the issue its first hearing in that chamber, to the House, where Rep. Ruth Fisher, D-Tacoma, had refused to hear Schmidt’s bill in memory of her friend, former Rep. Pat Scott. The longtime Everett Democratic lawmaker had worked for ET and had used her spot on the Transportation Committee for years to keep the merger proposal at bay. She died the day before the legislative session began last year.
Negotiators from both transit agencies have met seven times since April, when lawmakers decided to wait on legislative action and instead ordered them to get together and come up with a plan. The meetings stopped in December at CT’s behest.
CT board member Gary Nelson, who’s also the chairman of the Snohomish County Council and wrote the bill that led to CT’s creation when he was a legislator from south Snohomish County in 1975, said CT felt the discussions were just a waste of time.
CT says it’s subsidizing Everett riders to the tune of about $4 million a year, since it can’t collect taxes within city limits. The agency contends the route duplication is wasteful and estimates it could save about half that amount if it merges with ET and gets the new sales tax revenue.
But Everett Mayor Ed Hansen testified in opposition to what he termed an attempt at a "hostile takeover."
The bill’s mandatory countywide vote would mean Everett residents would be outnumbered 6-to-1 at the polls, he said. (The county’s population is more than 600,000, whereas Everett’s is about 96,000.) That would give county citizens outside Everett the authority to vote to raise Everett residents’ taxes and bus fares, both of which are higher under CT.
Donna Ambrose, the city’s governmental affairs and information manager, waxed nostalgic in her opposition to the proposed merger.
"The city of Everett has had a local transit system for about 109 years now," Ambrose said. "In a city where history and tradition run deep, Everett Transit has become an institution … It is not uncommon to find passengers that have actually ridden Everett Transit their entire lives."
Both sides testified that none of the bus drivers or other workers would lose their jobs if the merger went through, but the unions are still "vehemently opposed to this forced merger," said Sherry Appleton, a lobbyist for the Amalgamated Transit Union.
The heads of the locals from both agencies said there would be a lot of unwelcome changes, such as making drivers of smaller buses take over routes with bigger buses.
Activists on both sides of the issue testified as well.
Teresa "Flying Eagle" Baird, a Granite Falls woman who is confined to a wheelchair because of multiple sclerosis, talked about how draining it is for her to transfer from one bus system to another to get around Everett and the county.
But Patti Barton, whose husband works for ET, said her visual impairments have made her dependent on the bus for 20 years and she’s found ET officials to be much more responsive than CT in helping her be mobile. It’s one reason she moved back to Everett after 18 months in Arlington, she said.
"This bill will ruin my quality of life," Barton said.
Numerous others from Snohomish County showed up at the hearing, mostly in support of the merger. Boeing’s lobbyist signed up in support of the bill, although he didn’t testify.
No action was taken on the bill Tuesday. It has until Friday to pass out of committee.
You can call Herald Writer Susanna Ray at 360-586-3803 or send e-mail to ray@heraldnet.com.
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