The City of Maltby

Informational meeting Cancelled

2006-11-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

The Nov. 2nd meeting has been cancelled.

Meeting with Dave Somers

2006-10-09T16:57:00.000-07:00

The leaders of Maltby Inc will be meeting with Dave Somers next week to discuss our hopes of incorporating our city.

We'll be sure to let you know how it goes. Thanks for your support.

Informational meeting!

2006-10-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

We have an informational meeting scheduled for Thursday November 2nd at 7pm at the Maltby Community Center.

By then we should have actual tax revenue figures for the proposed city, as well as an official estimate for a city budget. We know that's the big question everyone is wondering, is "Can the city be funded from current tax revenue or will taxes need to be raised?"

We'll also have alot more detailed information and a everyone can have a chance to ask questions. We hope to have Dave Sommers there also.

So if you're already in favor, or unsure, join us to learn more and please mark the date on your calendar and tell your neighbors. We hope it will be very informative for everyone.

City Budget

2006-10-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the budget's of Snohomish and Monroe that their largest expense is the police department.

Snohomish city budget- 14.9 mil (police 3.6 mil) or 24%
Monroe city budget - 11.4 mil (police 4.8 mil) or 42%

In 2003 for the larger version of the proposed city of Maltby, the Sheriff's dept. estimated cost to provide contract police service to the proposed area of about 42 square miles was 1.6 million per year.

This year's proposed city area is about half that size which is likely to reduce the cost of contract police service. If we projected a city budget based on the Snohomish percentage of 24% for police, we'd end up with about 6.5 milllion. Just playing with the numbers.

The official estimate is likely to be somewhere between 6.5-12 million.

Officially....MaltbyInc

2006-10-06T11:24:00.000-07:00

Leaders of what was known as MCC met last night and we agreed to rename ourselves MaltbyInc as we have now moved to begin a major incorporation effort.

Several leaders, including Greg Stephens will be calling on Dave Somers next week to set up a meeting to inform him of our community organization and desire to incorporate.

This is a VERY critical meeting, in that this month is when PDS determines whether or not to allow our incorporation plan to be heard on the 2007 docket. It will take a call from Dave Somers to have them keep it on the docket. Also, we need to convince Dave of our seriousness so he can have actual tax revenue numbers put together that we can present at our informational meeting in a few weeks.

We need to appear organized and determined for Dave and PDS to take us seriously.

We need your help! Please email Dave Somers at Dave.Somers@co.Snohomish.wa.us and tell him that "As part of MaltbyInc, I'm in favor of incorporation and would appreciate it if you'd meet with our delegation." Or something to that effect. He needs to see that there's more than just a handful of people behind this.

By the way there will also be a proposal on the docket by a big developer to push the UGA boundary to Broadway. The crazy developing that's going on East of Mill Creek and Bothell will be right smack in the middle of Maltby, if we don't do anything.

We really need to act now before it's too late. Please spread the word to all your neighbors and have them contact Dave as well. Thanks!

From Greg Stephen's ...

2006-10-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

Spoke with the finance directors of Snohomish and Monroe. We expect that as neighboring jurisdictions, near our estimated population size, they would provide some ballpark numbers for comparison.

* Snohomish has approximately 10,000 pop. with a general fund budget of 14.9 million, and the largest expenses being police (3.6 million) and public works (1.3 million) .

* Monroe has approximately 16,000 pop. with a general fund budget of 11.4 million, with police (4.8 million) as their largest expense.

Both directors were very helpful, wished us success, and offered to share their spreadsheets with me when I come to see them in person. City revenues come from many sources, that include state and federal revenue sharing, grants,court fines and judgements,real estate excise taxes, document fees, building permit fees, event permit fees, business licenses,utility revenues,road fees, development mitigation fees,almost ad infinitum- not just property and sales tax.

Remember that property tax alone can never support services. The difference is made up by the sales tax revenues collected. Maltby has Costco (2+ million sales tax) and Flower World (??? sales tax), both of which are larger than any single business in either Snohomish or Monroe right now. City of Maltby has currently the Maltby UGA (industrial and commercial zone) of 960 acres, and the Clearview Commercial zone of 200 acres, and the Cathcart Landfill Property (county owned and zoned commercial, industrial, or any use) of 200+ acres that will be made available for sale in 2007. That makes over 2 square miles of commercial and industrial sales tax revenue generators. This is a larger revenue base area than either of the other two cities have, and one that we can continue to enhance as it is not even built out yet. I am lobbying for a business park and/or nano- technology research park at the Cathcart site (more jobs,revenue), instead of more residential subdivisions as the large builders want.

Snohomish County has all the revenue figures for our proposed city area as they currently collect those taxes. I will seek that info from them, but they are reluctant to generate the figures as it takes staff time. It will take a directive from our councilman, Dave Somers, to get it. He will have to see a request from an actual incorporation organization, not just me by myself again, to justify that staff time expenditure. Then we can quote real numbers to our citizens' questions, not ballpark estimates.

I would at present use a more updated estimate of 12 million for our own early budget numbers(the previous estimates are now 3 years old), until info comes in from the county staff research. I would expect that since we would for initial start-up years do contract-for-services, that our staffing and capital expenditures would be less than long established self service provider cities with decaying infrastructure needs such as our two neighbors.
Our sewer, water, power, and roads will all be new for the most part, and expansions paid for by the new growth in businesses and planned residential development .We could allow that in appropriate areas; not what we get stuck with after runaway county permitted sprawl and leapfrog development generated needs for supporting infrastructure and services. These numbers we estimate now are based on current conditions. After a 2 year incorporation process things may end up higher according to inflation, wage contacts, materials costs. We will need to factor in some latitude for our numbers so that folks will not feel misled by costs at time of actual state certification to begin city operation.

Just dream for one moment about what we'll look like if the other competing 2007 docket proposal to extend the SouthWest UGA boundary eastward to Broadway is granted ???

And don't forget, we'll have a brand new wastewater treatment facility on Hwy.9 coming on-line in just over 3 years to provide sewer capacity. The county will make sure that there are plenty of new customers (subdivisions) to use it. Maybe we should be who decides where, and how many the new hook-ups will be. But you may rest assured that the new plant will be used, it will not sit idle and just rust away- out of sight, out of mind.
That capacity will enable thousands of new building permits to be issued; and the county sees that as strengthening the economy.More jobs for the construction industry( our county's largest employer and campaign finance contributor), and building permit revenue to county coffers.

As for GMA......
GMA currently specifies a minimum of 4 dwelling units per acre within an urban growth area,such as a city, as a way to accomodate population gain estimates for the next 20 years(Sno. County est. 300,000 countywide increase). The City of Bainbridge Island (Winslow) annexed the entire island, after a vote of the people, as a way to control their own zoning( and thus their density and growth), just as we want to. We can partner with them to get our state legislative representatives(as they are doing) to sponsor wording amendment to the GMA to permit mixed density as a more appropriate method to accomodate population growth, than by mandating only more acres of mowed down and paved-over forest. By state law, only the state,county, or city may make zoning.

Mixed density would allow areas of low density(as most of our area is currently), in exchange for other areas of more dense(apartments, detached condos, cottage style housing, and duplex/4-plex) development to take the target population increase above what 4 dwellings/acre would yield in single family houses. I have already broached this proposal to several of our local elected state legislature members. They have indicated a willingness to talk if there is sufficient community support to proceed. Read that as... an actual organization stepping up to request it, preferably with other partners(eg.Bainbridge,Sudden Valley-Whatcom) to lend weight.

Other areas of the country(eg.West Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) nearby to large, growing(sprawling) metropolitan nightmares are doing exactly as we propose to do; take local control over our own future to retain our community identity and character(and tax revenues).Not coincidentally, local control is also the only way to control local tax rates. But you get the picture.

Historic Maltby....or Yew?

2006-10-04T16:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a little history on Maltby

Also some past news articles in the
P-I
Times

It's all about having a say in our future

2006-10-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

There's an interesting story in the Herald about Mukilteo wanting to annex an area near Paine Field.

You'll notice that the mayor's point is that they want a say in how it is developed.

That's exactly what were after here. Without the power of a city government the county will continue to allow radio towers, motocross, housing developments in sensitive water table areas, etc. With no city, we would be fighting these types of things more and more and it will be harder and harder to stop them.

Notice how they don't try to build these things inside a city's limits, because they know that no city would even consider allowing them.

Those of us who have engaged in fighting the county to stop these developments, know how unpleasant it is and don't want to be having to go through this every year. If your neighborhood hasn't been threatened yet, just wait.

London, Paris, Tokyo, Maltby

2006-10-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a few interesting facts about our fair City

Also, we started a thread on this topic on a City-Data discussion board. That way if you want to dialog with others in an open forum on this topic it will flow and read easier. Here is the Forum

Emailing lists?

2006-10-02T22:36:00.000-07:00

We did save email addresses from our community meeting in March, so we'll be contacting those folks to ask them to spread the word in their neighborhood.

Those living in Clearview and on the West side of HWY 9 need to be contacted the most since we don't really have alot of contacts in those areas. If you know folks in those areas especially, please be sure to get in touch with them.

If you have your own email list of neighbors in Maltby please be sure to let them all know what's going on.

We need to show the county strong support for this effort in just a few weeks!

We're planning an informational meeting

2006-10-02T15:05:00.000-07:00

We don't have a date in ink yet, but within the next few days we'll be able to let you know when our informational meeting will be held.

Then everyone can hear all the details and find out how they can help make it happen.

We had about 400 people at the motocross meeting in March, as well as T.V and newspaper reporters. It would be great to have that kind of turn-out again. We'll invite the local media again as well.

Greg Stephens recently spoke with the head of Snohomish County PDS and mentioned our new effort to become a city. He said "we are going for it" and the gentleman said "whose we?"

Obviously the county thinks this is just one guy's idea. We really need to work together to let them know that the majority of the community is behind this effort.

We will have a press release going out to the Herald shortly. This month is critical for getting this proposal included in the 2007 dockett, so we have to work hard to show the county council that we're serious out here.

BTW we should have answers posted to the most recent questions by tonight or tomorrow, and please feel free to keep posting your questions and comments.

Also, if you have neighbor's who haven't heard about this incorporation effort please let them know and give them this blog address to keep them posted, contacting the president of local homeowner's associations would be helpful also, we really need to spread the word. Thanks!

Zoning and aquifer...

2006-09-26T17:06:00.000-07:00

As far as zoning, when we have a Maltby city council in place we'll be able to make zoning laws that protect our community they way we want , not county officials in Everett.

We will also be able to more forecefully protect our aquifer, since we're the ones who get our drinking water from it.

A few questions answered...

2006-09-24T18:28:00.000-07:00

Greg Stephens, not Greg Lund is spearheading the incorporation effort. As many of you know Greg Stephens has worked tirelessly making incorporation of Maltby his life mission for the last 5 years. He has presented the county a larger scale version of the city the last 2 years and has researched every aspect of incorporating our community.

In meeting with him, he stated his findings show the industrial corridor (outlined in pink on the map) would supply more than enough tax revenue alone to fund our city budget. Not even counting property taxes.

If we look at Mill Creek or Sammamish for example, they have virtually no industrial base other than some retail establishments. If we look at our industrial corridor from the county line (just south of 3 Rivers Marine, not into King county) all the way to Flower World we have numerous large industrial operations, Costco, Rinker cement plant, Topsoil companies, Trucking operations, nurseries, mills and many industrial parks housing numerous businesses. Not to mention a number of retail strips on Hwy 9.

Projected budget for the city would be 6 million, of which Costco would fund 1/3 by itself. This is why getting Costco included is key, Woodinville is wanting to annex Grace to get Costco as well and we need to beat them to it.

By the way, Greg is planning to meet with the owners of Washington Dinner Train to persuade them to move out here.

Owners of a famous nursery here are said to be in favor of incorporating also.

Will see if I can get some specific tax revenue projections.

Timeline

2006-09-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

This November Greg will be meeting with County Council members to persuade them to put this submitted proposal on the 2007 Docket. (In the coming weeks it will become very important to let the council members know that this is something our community really wants, and that it's not just Greg Stephens all by himself)

If the Council agrees, they will hold hearings where us concerned citizens can voice our support and reasons for wanting to incorporate. They will then vote on whether or not to allow it to be voted on by citizens in the proposed area.

If they vote in favor, we'll need to collect signatures of 10% of the voters in the proposed area to be able to put it to a vote by November 2007.

If it passes, we'll have one year to prove to the county that we have everything needed to become a city. If we do, then it becomes official. We're looking at November 2008 for cityhood.

As you can see, even starting now, it's at least 2 years in the making. That's why we can't put it off any longer. Once developers start putting the pressure on the council to reject this, it's going to make it that much harder. They don't want another layer of government to restrict them, they like it the way it is.

No new taxes!

2006-09-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

Greg Stephens has been working hard to incorporate Maltby to preserve our way of life here for 5 years and has done a ton of research.

New taxes are a fear of many when it comes to incorporating. Most new cities have little to no industry to provide the tax base needed. Maltby would not have that problem, the businesses in the industrial corridor would provide more than enough revenue for our city to operate. Costco alone would provide 2 million dollars a year! That's more than enough for the Maltby police dept. and police funding is usually a new cities biggest expense.

I for one like the thought of having our own police dept. Having been burglarized twice last year, the second time the Snohomish County Sheriff didn't even respond. After talking with the officer we discovered that they are spread so thin that they don't bother with calls out here unless it's something major. Apparently burglars know this.

85% of all sales taxes paid by businesses in our industrial corridor would go to the city of Maltby.

Greg has a great vision of building downtown Maltby by going with the turn-of-the-century look that's there. Making Maltby a bit of a tourist destination, the idea of becoming another Leavenworth rather than another Lynnwood.

Having a City of Maltby address would likely increase property values. Just as a Mill Creek address increases property value over a Everett address nearby, a Maltby address would likely be considered more desireable than a Snohomish address.

Here is the proposed city limits of the city of Maltby

2006-09-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

This map is a little hard to read here (Double-click on it to blow it up, then click the box with blue arrows). The bottom border is the county line, just a couple blocks below Costco. The Western border is 52nd Ave SE, the southeast border is roughly 224th st se and the NorthEast border is Connely RD down to Fales RD.

The pink highlighted area in the middle is the industrial corridor (Read-tax base).

On the left side you'll see that blue North-South line on 45th Av SE is the current UGA boundary. To the West of that line you've probably noticed the developements going in like crazy. There is already a proposal by a developer to move that boundary to Broadway.