Good News/Bad News/More Bad News

Good News

In a unanimous decision, the Washington Court of Appeals agreed with the City's position that the East Wenatchee Water District's attempt to annex over 4,000 acres of mostly dryland agriculture land into its boundaries violated the goals and policies of the Growth Management Act ("GMA"), the State Environmental Protection Act, and the City's and Douglas County's comprehensive plan.

The District wrote to the City on June 14, 2006 to inform the City of the District's future expansion plans. That letter informed the City that "[t]he future service area has been expanded in response to three proposed annexation requests that the District has received." Those annexation requests were consolidated in a petition for annexation filed with the District by CDL Development, L.L.C., and other developers and landowners. The petition sought the annexation of 4,057 acres of property bordering the District's current boundary of service. The proposed annexation territory includes 282 acres that are zoned rural resource lands and 2,919 acres that are zoned dry land agriculture as well as some commercial agricultural acreage.

When the City first learned of the proposed annexation, the City Planner wrote a letter to the Water District urging it to reject the proposed annexation because it would promote urban growth outside the urban growth boundary, would lead to sprawl, and would not protect agricultural lands. The Water District ignored this request and approved the proposed annexation. The Douglas County Boundary Review Board did likewise.

The Boundary Review Board supported its decision to approve the annexation by reasoning that the agricultural land in question was of marginal productivity. The Court of Appeals held, however, that the Board lacked the authority to ignore the land use classifications in the comprehensive plan. It also held that the Boundary Review Board mistakenly found that the land had "marginal productivity and minimal long-term agricultural use. Although one landowner testified that he would make more money by developing his land rather than planting wheat as he had in the past. This testimony does not lead to a reasonable finding that agriculture is not supportable; it merely identifies the landowner's preference.

Additionally, the City and Douglas County's comprehensive plan is expressly geared toward ensuring that growth outside the urban growth area is nonurban in nature; reducing conversion of undeveloped land into sprawling, low-density development; concentrating urban density and land uses within urban growth area; defining and developing resource lands necessary to support and sustain the long-term commercial production of cultural and mineral products; protecting agricultural lands and activities from conflicting nonfarm uses and influences; and supporting agricultural use in the event of a conflict between residential uses and agricultural uses. The Court of Appeals held that the Boundary Review Board's decision was in direct conflict with these planning goals and an error of law.

Finally, even though developers have plans to build a resort hotel, two championship golf courses, an equestrian center, a tennis club, swimming pools and playparks, a destination spa, 4,000 condominium units, and up to 200,000 square feet of commercial/retail space, the Water District advanced the annexation as a nonproject proposal. The Court of Appeals found this premise faulty. It held that the annexation is tied to what the District deems to be inevitable development by known persons and entities. Yet the development plans were not part of the proposal. One of the purposes of SEPA is to provide consideration of environmental factors at the earliest possible stage to allow decisions to be based on complete disclosure of environmental consequences. Likewise, the environmental impact statement preparation process must begin early enough so the statement can actually contribute to the decision-making process rather than be used to rationalize decisions already made. Because the annexation of the territory was considered without reference to the specific project the developers had in mind, the annexation easily passed with a DNS. The development is the reason for the District's annexation and proposal to provide water services. The development plans should have been considered along with the annexation to address cumulative impacts.

I am pleased with the fact that the Court of Appeals agrees with the position taken by the City from the beginning in this matter. I am especially pleased with the work done by City Attorney Devin Poulson through the course of this proceeding. Mr. Poulson's work justifies the City's decision to hire full time counsel. The cost to the City's taxpayers to pursue this decision would have been prohibitive if my recommendation to hire in-house counsel had not been accepted by the city counsel a few years ago.

The Water District has 30 days to appeal this decision to the Washington Supreme Court.


Bad News

As most of you have probably read in the newspaper, Waste Management laid off its local director, Ted Woodard. This is a big loss to the City and, in my opinion, to Waste Management. Mr. Woodward was one of the driving forces behind the Sportsplex idea. And he was the City's main advocate in having Waste Management enter into a host fee agreement with the City that would provide about $300,000 a year to promote activities for the youth of the community. Under this agreement, the City would have received anywhere from $0.85 to $1.00 for each ton of solid waste that went across the scales at Waste Management's new landfill. About 85% of these tons come from places outside Chelan and Douglas County.

I have spoken with Mr. Woodard's replacements who have informed me that Waste Management is not interested in entering into a a host fee agreement at this time. I am going to continue exploring options with Waste Management, but at this time the community will have to explore other financing options for better serving our youth. Personally, I do not intend to give up on the potential for partnering with the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation and the Boys and Girls Club of America on a facility for our community. Such might require contacting other waste haulers who may be interested in competing for providing services to the City.


More Bad News

State law says that crimes involving property valued more that $250 are felonies. Early this year, however, Douglas County announced that it would no longer prosecute property crimes as felonies unless the dollar amount is over $750.00. Example, under state law stealing $500 worth of merchandise from a store is a felony. Someone with nine prior criminal offenses would spend a minimum of 43 months in prison. Now, the maximum penalty will be 365 days.

This results in shifting the burden of prosecuting crimes under $750 to the City, in shifting the cost of incarcerating these type of criminals from the County to the City, and encouraging harden criminals to commit their crimes in East Wenatchee because the penalty for getting caught just went down substantially. All in all, bad news for City taxpayers and bad news for the retail stores in East Wenatchee.