An inability to grow

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

For all the many good things that can be said of Snohomish, it may be "dying on the vine," worries local farmer Ed Stocker.

The city has been unable to grow, in part because the county has twice rebuffed its attempts to annex land, which would have expanded its tax base and created new job opportunities.

Yet many in town and some who live in the area argued vehemently against the annexations, fearing it would bring the kind of growth that has sent Monroe sprawling across the upper Snohomish Valley.

Snohomish was blocked from annexing Harvey Airfield, the local airport that was homesteaded in 1867 by John and Cristina Harvey. It's been in the Harvey family ever since.

The city failed to annex land along Bickford Avenue, northwest of downtown. A Ford dealership along Bickford would have generated hundreds of thousands of added tax dollars a year for the city had the annexation gone through.

The dealership and two others once were located downtown, along with several food processing plants, which closed, as did many of the downtown shops. The school district remains the biggest employer in town.

Increasingly, city residents have carried the brunt of local improvement projects, including a $13 million upgraded sewage treatment plant. The project, ordered by the federal government, increased monthly residential sewer rates from about $10 to $35, said Steve Dana, Newell Dana's son, former mayor and current City Council member.

The plant upgrade was a sore point for some, said Steve Dana, but it had to be done and over time will serve a growing population.

The library is another dilemma. Almost three-fourths of the people who use it live outside the city, said librarian Becky Buckingham. When the library board sought a $4 million bond measure in 1994, Snohomish voted it down. Buckingham said residents thought it was unfair to foot the bill when so many others who live outside the city use it.