By Alexis Bacharach
Enterprise editor
The three candidates running for Mill Creek City Council, position 7, have opposing viewpoints on many of the issues facing the city, but all say they’re dedicated to preserving the amenities that brought people to the community in the first place.
“Mill Creek was sold as the countryside of the city,” said candidate and local real estate agent Ray Graves. “I’m very concerned in maintaining the consistency of our neighborhoods — not losing the vision of what Mill Creek people are here for.”
Graves, along with candidates Mark Harmsworth and Chuck Wright, all of whom will face off in the Aug. 21 primary election, met last week with The Enterprise to share their views on a range of issues, including the city’s seemingly fractured relationship with Snohomish County, annexation and whether city services are sufficient to meet the needs of a growing population.
While development in Mill Creek’s Municipal Urban Growth Area shows no sign of slowing, all three candidates stressed the need for improved communication with the officials responsible for approving construction projects in unincorporated areas — the Snohomish County Council.
“We need to get together with other small cities and as a coalition of citizens go to the county — ‘Let’s make sure the developments you’re approving are developments that we would want to annex into our cities,’” said Harmsworth, a team manager at Microsoft. “We have to have a relationship with the county. We want them to understand the problems we’re faced with as a city. It’s incumbent upon us to understand the problems the county is facing.”
Wright, who’s lived in Mill Creek since 1993, said municipal leaders have approached the county several times about development standards. It hasn’t motivated the County Council to operate any differently, he added.
“It seems to be an ongoing problem that the county’s development standards don’t match those of the cities’,” he said. “Yes, we need to look at annexation and ask ourselves, ‘What is the city going to get out of this?’ We also need to be willing sometimes to lose a little in the first few years and look at annexation as an investment in our future.”
Graves agreed there is some value in utilizing annexation as a means of protection from the county’s less restrictive development standards.
“We have to protect what we’ve got,” he said. “In some cases I would rather the city get to the land before the county so we have control over what is built there.”
At the same time, Graves cautioned against annexing to the point that city services are stretched beyond their limits.
“We annexed something like 800 houses on the east end of town two years ago and we’re still not providing services like parks and other amenities to those residents,” he said. “I think requests need to be looked at long and hard and more of an effort needs to be made in working with the county to make sure our guidelines are in agreement with what the county is doing.”
Growth within the city limits alone has residents concerned about crime and other safety issues, the candidates said. Incorporating properties outside city limits only aggravates those fears.
“My primary concern is protection of people and personal property,” Harmsworth said. “We need a more visible police presence in our neighborhoods and business communities. That can’t happen if we’re annexing land right, left and center.”
How to fund municiple service is an issue the candidates aren’t
in total agreement on.
Harmswoth and Wright are op
posed to increasing property taxes, even though the city has avoided an increase for the last two years.
“I would look at other options first,” Wright said. “Property taxes should be increased only as a last resort.”
Graves, on the other hand, believes residents should be willing to pay for the quality of life they enjoy in Mill Creek.
While he’s not a big proponent of tax increases, he said it would not be unreasonable of the city to increase taxes to pay for vital services.
“I’m a real estate agent, and I when I talk to clients about Mill Creek I’m selling a lifestyle,” her said.
“At some point you have to buckle up and bite the bullet. We have to maintain our services.”
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