Edmonds council rejects sacrificing parks for sidewalks

EDMONDS – The City Council will look for other ways to spruce up the city’s ailing street fund after rejecting a proposal to move money from parks to pay for sidewalks.

Ten residents spoke against the plan at a meeting Tuesday, while none spoke in favor.

“It does not solve the real problem,” resident Dale Hoggins said. “Our parks are one of our jewels – one of the things that makes Edmonds, Edmonds.”

In March, the City Council asked staff to generate ideas for revenue to pump into the city’s street fund, from which sidewalks are financed. The fund has lost nearly half of its revenue the past two years after the 2002 passage of Initiative 776, which eliminated county-level motor vehicle excise taxes.

As a result, the city has had to put off numerous plans to improve streets and build walkways. It is now on a 65-year pace to repave all its streets, when a cycle of 20-30 years is considered ideal.

The problem was spotlighted recently when some Meadowdale residents complained of safety problems at the sidewalk-less intersection of 76th Avenue W. and Meadowdale Beach Road.

But none of them showed up Tuesday to support the money shifting plan, which would have paid for their walkway first.

Under the plan, 15 percent of the city’s annual real-estate excise tax, which generates about $1.5 million a year, would have gone toward sidewalk projects. That would have equaled about $210,000 a year, city development services director Duane Bowman said.

The real-estate excise tax equals one-half of 1 percent of all real-estate sales in the city and can by state law be used for parks and recreation or capital improvements, Bowman said.

City Council members agreed with the residents who spoke against the plan, noting the city traditionally has used the excise taxes for parks.

But council members also asserted that something needs to be done for the street fund. Other revenue ideas mentioned include a utility tax, a street utility, a voter-approved transportation levy, local-improvement districts and money from a possible annexation of the Esperance area.

Council members said they would consider the ideas in budgeting this fall for 2005. They also agreed with staff’s suggestion that an appeal be made to the state Legislature to allow the city to create a street utility.

“Cities all across the state are struggling with this,” Council member Mauri Moore said.

Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.

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