10 years ago — 1998

n With the nation’s Independence Day celebration a little more than a month away, some Smokey Point residents say they are feeling a kinship with revolutionaries who fought for the right to determine their own destiny. “I feel something so vitally important should be voted on by the people,” Smokey Point resident Daryl Gemmer told the State Boundary Review Board at a hearing concerning a proposal that, if approved, would put the area inside the Arlington city limits. “This is like the Boston Tea Party all over again. Taxation without representation,” he said. Gemmer, and about a dozen others speaking at the meeting, encouraged the BRB to deny the annexation proposal because most residents inside the area had no part in the three-year-old proposal to annex the area to Arlington. The current annexation proposal under consideration by the BRB looks vastly different from the one proposed in November 1995. Then the proposal included the area between I-5 and 43rd Avenue NE, from 152nd north to 172nd and jumping across the freeway to include Lakewood Commons. The BRB, in an effort to straighten boundary lines, added residential areas north of 172nd and approved the annexation. That decision was appealed in court by those residents added after-the-fact — and by the city of Marysville and the Marysville Fire District. A negotiated settlement between Arlington, Marysville and the fire district was announced a year later delineating the Urban Growth Boundary between the two cities and providing agreements for water, sewer and fire service. Marysville provides water and sewer services to the area and had refused new hookups until the settlement was reached. The settlement also changed the boundaries of the proposed annexation area into Arlington because some of that area became part of Marysville’s UGA. The new annexation area — 164th Street NE north to 188th Street NE between the freeway and the Arlington Airport — removed many of the property owners who signed the original 60 percent annexation petition, especially between 152nd and 164th and Lakewood Commons west of the freeway. The negotiated settlement, a behind-closed-doors agreement that involved discussion between officials of Marysville, Arlington and the fire district, did not include property owners or area residents. It was, however, later approved by the Snohomish County Planning Commission and the Snohomish County Council. The public hearing portion of the process was closed last week. The BRB has the authority to deny the annexation, approve it with the new boundaries or change the boundaries. According to most of the testimony at the last public meeting, and supported with petitions containing more than 500 signatures, most of the area’s residents want no part of the annexation. In fact, many would like to create an independent city of the Smokey Point/Lakewood area. That’s one way, according to incorporation proponents, to preserve the community served by the Lakewood School District.

25 years ago — 1983

n What’s best for Marysville? That was a question city administration and members of the Downtown Redevelopment Commission struggled with in the beginning of the downtown project. It’s the same question members of the Downtown Property Owners and Tenants Association now are asking themselves. Last month the Council granted the organization a 30-day extension to come up with an alternate plan to the one proposed by the DRC. The group presented its proposal to Council Monday night and asked them to consider it as a “double” plan for not only the downtown area but the entire business district. Spokesman for the DPOTA, George Pepelnjak, explained the importance of an alternative proposal because it appeared Council would choose the DRC plan as proposed or no plan and that flexibility would not be part of the choice. “Unfortunately, neither seems to be an agreeable answer to the business community as a whole, inside or outside the defined development area,” the alternate proposal stated. The DPOTA is concerned at the cost of the present plan and the affect it would have on the surrounding community. “Who will pay the costs?” Pepelnjak asked “It’s always easier to say the developer, but in the final analysis to say developer, is an ‘easy’ way out. Ultimately it is the customer who will pay and this customer is the people from the community of Marysville. Who can justify the ultimate cost? What would become of the surrounding community?” But the most important aspect, Pepelnjak noted, was support. The DRC plan as present lacks unified support, he said, and it is stimulating unhealthy talk of litigation and is generating a lack of support for the concept. Any final concept must have the major support of the landowners and the business community, the group contends. In presenting some concrete alternatives to Council, Pepelnjak compared the concept behind the two plans. “It must be understood that the DRC proposal is a ‘redevelopment’ plan. The DPOTA proposal is a proposal for a downtown ‘revitalization.’ Vitamins and exercise instead of major surgery.” The plan calls for a traffic loop making State Avenue a one-way street northbound and Delta Avenue a one-way street southbound, with angle parking on each street. The group’s proposal would relocate the railroad spur to potential and existing light industrial zoned land lying to the southeast of downtown. The DPOTA also hopes the plan could renovate the existing Odd Fellows building for a community arts center and focal point in downtown.

50 years ago — 1958

n An above average strawberry crop is predicted for the Marysville area by most growers. The unusually mild winter and dry, warm spring account for the bumper crop expected. Picking will start in some fields about the second week of June with others, perhaps, starting earlier. Prospects for pickers look fairly good too, it is said, with schools cooperating for an early dismissal of students desiring to help. The superintendent’s office reports junior high students will be excused at one o’clock on days they are required to pick. A change of schedule June 2, 3 and 4 will affect both high school and junior high. Classes will convene at 8 a.m. instead of the regular time and will be dismissed at 2:30 p.m. Frost damage has been slight here in most cases. Principal damage was to late blossoms which probably would not have matured anyway, one grower stated.