Skippers purchase is off the table

Published 11:21 pm Tuesday, May 4, 2010

EDMONDS — A controversial plan to purchase the former Skippers restaurant property is off the table.

Unable to convince the property owner, Cascade Bank, to give the city an extension in order to complete due diligence work, including environmental queries, Edmonds’ written offer lapsed without a counter offer from the bank.

“There’s no offer on the table,” Steve Bernheim, city council president announced with little fanfare after an executive session during the May 4 council meeting.

Now council can turn its attention to foreboding budget projections pointing to 2012 when the city will be spending more than it is making. Some council members purport to stem that tide with a levy, but timing is everything.

Mayor Gary Haakenson, by state law, is required to prepare a balanced budget. The 2011-12 budget will be presented to council Oct. 1. Council is expected to pass a budget by year’s end.

“Regardless if we run a levy or not, the budget I present to (council) — it won’t be pretty,” Haakenson said. “There will be severe budget cuts. This time it will be people.”

Councilwoman Diane Buckshnis, a member of the finance committee, suggested that to decide if a levy is needed, and in what form it should take, the council should base its evaluation on 2009 numbers rather than rely on the 2008 figures it used last year when it also considered a levy. She further suggested a seven-member commission be put in place to investigate the city’s financial condition.

Should council wait until December to decide on a levy, due to the legal process it wouldn’t appear on the ballot until June 2011.

That’s too close for comfort for Councilman D.J. Wilson.

“I am panicked,” Wilson said. “I don’t want to fire cops and close parks. We don’t always have the luxury of time. We are heading into the red.”

“I won’t be bullied into a levy,” Councilwoman Adrienne Fraley-Monillas said. “I need to have all the information in front of me. I have to be comfortable to explain (a levy) to the citizens. There are so many questions. I don’t have adequate information. I feel like (we) are pushing panic on the citizens. This is not ‘Chicken Little’ and the sky in not falling, yet.”