Erik's favorite hot button: annexation

While I was away, there were a few items of note on the annexation front.

First, Auburn successfully passed two expansions of its boundaries, while Federal Way's annexation proposition failed.

Second, there's an interesting fight going on in Puyallup about annexation and services.

Puyallup wants to annex North Puyallup into its boundaries. Some of the businesses, namely a putt-putt/go kart operator in that area, don't want to be annexed, because they feel (perhaps rightly) that Puyallup would zone them as residential, which would prevent them from expanding their business.

Neither side is acting well here. I understand the city's reasoning: they don't want to add services on an a la carte basis to its outlying residents. This gives them no incentive to ever want to join in with the city and actually pay their "fair share" of taxes in relation to the benefit they're receiving.

On the other hand, the City should not be attempting to contract to supply water to the go-kart operator with the clause that the owner can't oppose future annexation bids. That's a bad way to go about things.

It's an interesting fight. And one we might see repeated again in the future with other cities and businesses.