State of the City
Posted by Gary O'Rielly
on Jan 27, 2016
On a cloudy rainy day, the forecast for the City and where we are headed was upbeat and very promising. Only two weeks on the job as the new Mayor of Lake Stevens, John Spencer cited a financially fiscal city with substantial reserves. Very little debt with revenue forecast for 2016 on the conservative side. Real Estate taxes pays for any debt incurred by the city. Mitigation fund was projected at $700,000 with the actual coming in at $900,000 for 2015.
Mayor Spencer reminded us that the downtown core area hasn't changed in the last 31 years. Something that he and the City Council want to change. One approach is moving the city staff to another location somewhere in the city, tearing down the old city hall and start a new downtown area. It might include some public-private partnerships. The city will work with the Sno-Isle Library system to help expand the library and city hall. Complete the annexation of property around the lake is another task to be completed.
Staffing issues are being weeded out. A new one year contract with the teamsters and a collaborative bargaining process with labor will start around May. Working on other ways to improve contracts. The Police Department is among the best with a few hiccups with staffing but moving along in the right direction.
The Trestle is partially inadequate and the legislature has authorized a $3 million to study its future. One way to improve the Trestle according to the Mayor might be allowing traffic driving down 20th St SE who normally merge on to the Trestle to allow the traffic to flow under the grade and along Ebey Island and up to the trestle. The alternative might be less expensive. Other suggestions is to work with Community Transit and Boeing on shuttle services since a huge number of our residents spend a lot of time dealing with traffic issues. Also, access to Frontier Village from the south end as a second point of entry to the Village might be another alternative to the Highways 204 and 9 entrance alone. The mayor, council and staff will hold a week-end retreat to address these and other issues facing the city. All in all, very exciting news about the future trends of the city and the financial forecast. We look forward each year at this time for an update on the State of the City address. Thank you Mayor Spencer for such an upbeat message.
Mayor Spencer was introduced by his brother-in-law, neighbor and our fellow Rotarian Jim Haugen. Spencer was born in Spokane and raised on a family farm in the Cheney area. At the age of 9 young John churned the cream and started a little delivery business and at 14 the family moved to Lacey. He met his wife Terri at the University of Washington and they married in 1968. Following the UW he received his Masters Degree in British Columbia. The rest of his bio is so rich in background and work related experience that we will wait to list at another time.