MARYSVILLE – Country singer Tim McGraw had a popular song in 2000 about how, because of lessons he’d learned, he would do things differently in “My Next Thirty Years.”
The same could be said for Marysville and the entire region as planning director Dave Koenig talked to the City Council about Vision 2050 Monday night.
“We’re on track. We need to be part of the overall plan,” Koenig said, adding the city will need to update its comprehensive plan to address the changes by 2023.
“Snohomish County takes the numbers and assigns them to cities” by May 2020, he said of the population and employment allocations.
Some goals of the Puget Sound Regional Council plan include: A strong economy and healthy environment; preserve waters, farms, recreation and resource lands; and urban growth area and centers strategy.
By 2050, the forecast is for King, Snohomish, Pierce and Skagit counties to grow by 1.8 million people; jobs are expected to grow from 2.2 million to 3.4 million.
The population will be older and more diverse. Already, between 2000-2016, 81 percent of the region’s population growth has been people of color. The PSRC says there are three options for growth.
•Stay the Course: Growth focused on metropolitan and core cities. Most growth would be in Seattle, Bellevue, Everett, Bremerton and Tacoma.
•Transit-focused: Growth hear high-capacity transit areas. Because of the coming Swift Line, Marysville and Arlington would be part of that.
•Reset urban: Growth distributed more throughout the urban growth area.
Common to all of the alternatives is: Average drive times and distances will be less, but time spent in traffic will increase. Transit ridership more than doubles. Air quality will improve. All require about 830,000 new housing units. Key themes include: Compact, walkable places; leverage transportation investments; promote affordable housing; social equity; and climate change.
Koenig said a key goal for Marysville is to have the Arlington Marysville Manufacturing Industrial Center as part of Vision 2050, which would help it get regional transportation grants. The PSRC is expected to officially recognize the AMMIC June 27.
Koenig said the Vision 2050 plan adoption process will take about a year, and the public will be able to comment on it.
In other council news Monday:
•Mayor Jon Nehring designated June as Myasthenia Gravis Awareness Month in the city. He said it is more common in the Pacific Northwest and often is misdiagnosed and can be fatal, but can be controlled with medicine.
•Three major roads were part of this year’s Pavement Preservation Project, and cost was 15 percent below the estimate.
•The city received $18,695 from the county for its embedded social worker program.
•A federally funded position to assist with outreach to limited English-speaking residents in Marysville was approved.
•The city received almost $31,600 from the Marysville noon Rotary for its anti-bullying campaign.
•Parks director Jim Ballew said the city is in a full-court press in the legislature trying to obtain funding for various projects.
•Police Chief Rick Smith said he went to some great training on, “Taking care of ourselves.” When he first entered law enforcement, they were always told to “suck it up.” But this training was a real “eye opener.” He said he wants others to get the training to help with morale and retention.
•Kelli Thode of the American Red Cross said volunteers will be installing smoke alarms at three housing developments in Marysville Saturday as part of Sound the Alarm. The goal is to install 400 in six locations countywide. She also said there were 12 fires in Marysville where the Red Cross helped last year. They help with housing, clothing and food so people in a disaster don’t have to spend money “out of pocket.”
