Dream village faces school nightmare

By RACHEL ZIMMERMAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

On weekday mornings in Lorie Ragsdale's dream community, she would walk herdaughter a block to school and then walk herself the quarter-mile to work.

That was the promise offered at Northwest Landing, the award-winningplanned community being developed by Weyerhaeuser on a 3,000-acre propertymidway between Tacoma and Olympia.

But development of the evolving urban village isn't going according toplan.

A previously irrelevant school district boundary line turns out to runthrough the middle of Northwest Landing, with all of the houses on one sideand all of the office buildings on the other.

That means the considerable property tax revenue from the development'sindustrial tenants -- including the Intel Corp. and State Farm Insurance Cos. --helps pay the costs of one school district.

But all of the kids -- including 3-year-old Katy Ragsdale -- live in anotherschool district.

In the meantime, there are no schools in DuPont, where Northwest Landing islocated, and the four sites Weyerhaeuser has set aside for sale as schoolsites are forested islands in the middle of a sudden suburb, marked only bysmall signs that read, for example, "Proposed elementary school."

The children of DuPont, who now number about 125 and are expected to numberas many as 2,500 when the development is complete, are being bused to schoolsin Steilacoom -- trips that take as long as 45 minutes.

"One of the things that sold us on this house was that a block away wewere going to have an elementary school, and that was a pleasant thought forme of walking my child to school and then walking to work," said Ragsdale,31, a State Farm underwriter. "But at this point, I doubt Katy will ever goto school in this community."

Until recently, DuPont, which was built as a company town by the explosivesmanufacturer E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., had only 600 residents. TheDuPont school district was dissolved in 1973, and since that time the childrenof DuPont have been bused eight miles to schools run by the state's oldestdistrict, the Steilacoom Historical School District, established in 1855.

But in 1976, when DuPont closed its explosives plant, Weyerhaeuser boughtthe land and, after losing a nasty battle to build an exporting facility onthe property, the company decided to build a new neighborhood.

Now, suddenly, it is the city of DuPont that is exploding. Because ofNorthwest Landing, the city's population is expected to jump from 600 to11,000 over the next two decades.

Building an elementary school in DuPont would cost an estimated $8.5million; a middle school would cost $19 million. But Steilacoom voters went 18years without passing a bond measure to repair their own dilapidated andovercrowded schools, and they don't appear ready to pay for new schools forDuPont children unless they get the tax dollars.

"There's a breakdown of logic that says one school district gets the kidsand one gets the tax base," said Jeff Lincoln, a Steilacoom parent. "It's sofundamentally unfair I can't believe it."

But the Clover Park School District, which accidentally won the revenuefrom Northwest Landing's industry, refuses to let go of its sudden windfall,fearing that would cause a tax increase for its residents.

Clover Park is a poorer school district than Steilacoom, with just $225,000in property value per student and with 49 percent of its students eligible forfree or reduced lunch programs. Steilacoom, by contrast, has $515,000 inproperty value per student and just 25 percent of its students are eligiblefor free or reduced lunches.

The Intel and State Farm properties alone are worth more than $100 million,which is worth about $1 million in taxes to Clover Park this year. If thatmoney were eliminated by moving the boundary line, Clover Park owners of a$100,000 home would have to pay an additional $7 annually to make up the loss.

"Why the Legislature would want to raise our taxes in order to lower thetaxes for the people in Northwest Landing makes no sense to me," said JohnDavis of Lakewood, a Clover Park School Board member.

Even if Clover Park were charged with educating the children of DuPont, thedistrict would be unlikely to build them a school because Clover Park alreadyhas empty space in its classrooms.

The development's master planner, architect Peter Calthorpe, said having anelementary school is a very important part of his vision of a walkableneighborhood, because parents and children tend to form relationships aroundschools.

Many residents agree, and some have talked about building a schoolthemselves in a kind of old-fashioned barn-raising, although they aren't surewhether that would be legal.

"I can stand here and see State Farm from my house, yet that tax moneygoes to a school district that does not educate my kids," said Dina Curtis,34, who lives at Northwest Landing and has two children. "It's incredible."

Steilacoom officials are seriously considering placing portable classroomson a plot of land at Northwest Landing, but are worried that could become anexcuse for doing no more.

"We are pursuing plans to have portable classrooms there, because we don'twant to bus children that long distance every day, and because this districthas an ongoing philosophy about neighborhood schools," said SteilacoomSuperintendent Art Himmler. "But none of us really wants to have portables bethe standard facility in which kids are educated."

One of the parents' fiercest allies is state Rep. Gigi Talcott, R-GigHarbor, a first-grade teacher on leave from the Clover Park School Districtwho owns land at Northwest Landing.

"This is a golden egg, and it isn't Clover Park that laid it," Talcottsaid. "There are going to be 10,000 people living at Northwest Landing, andthey've got to have schools. If a chance line goes across the fields, thatline should be fixed."

Sen. Marilyn Rasmussen, D-Eatonville, said the school district boundarywas essentially laid down when "everybody thought the area was just awasteland."

"Now the people that bought into Northwest Landing are getting robbed,because their kids have to go to Steilacoom and Steilacoom is not going tobuild any schools in their area," Rasmussen said. "The whole thing is just amess. It's greed on the part of Clover Park, which takes the taxes and doesn'thave to educate the kids."

Moving the boundary line would require action by the state Legislaturebecause the state's 50-year-old statute governing school district propertylines does not contemplate a situation where there are no voters living withina disputed piece of property.

This year the city of DuPont hired former state House Speaker Joe King,D-Vancouver, in an effort to persuade the Legislature to move the boundaryline. Clover Park hired Vito Chiechi, former House GOP Caucus staff director,to protect its purse.

Weyerhaeuser gave the city of DuPont money to help pay King's fee, but thecorporation did not ask its own lobbyists, who wield considerable influence atthe Capitol, to get involved. Weyerhaeuser decided that lawmakers would likelybe more sympathetic to the pleas of parents than to those of a largedeveloper, but some legislators have said they believe that was a tacticalerror on the company's part.

The Legislature wound up doing nothing, rejecting a variety of billsproposed by DuPont supporters and handing a victory to Clover Park.

The fight is now heading to the state Board of Education, but the stateeducation bureaucracy over the past several years has expressed littleinterest in the children of Northwest Landing. Instead, the matter has beenkicked from board to board and official to official as various bureaucratshaggle over the meaning of an old law governing boundaries.

"I had both sides lobbying me," said Superintendent of Public InstructionTerry Bergeson, who claims to have no personal opinion about how to pay forthe education of the children of Northwest Landing.

"It's not acceptable just to leave a contentious problem unresolved, butyou can't resolve it without looking at the issues all across the state."

An obscure Burien-based board called the Regional Committee, which issupposed to resolve school district boundary disputes in Pierce County, hasrepeatedly ruled that it can't do anything unless the voters living in thedisputed territory want to be moved. But there are no voters living in thedisputed territory -- the land is all industrial -- so the board has declined toact.

The Board of Education, which could help change the arcane law governingschool boundaries, acknowledges that the law is flawed, but lobbied against avariety of proposed changes this year. Now the board wants nearly two yearsto think about what should be done.

"There's nothing the state board can do until the law is changed, andwe're not advocating any changes until there's a full-scale study of anychanges," Executive Director Larry Davis said, adding that he can't imaginesuch a study being completed until the 1999 legislative session.

In the meantime, the success of Northwest Landing is at stake.

"Unless they solve the school problem, I think the nature of thisneighborhood will change and it will only attract retired people and peoplewithout children," resident Elizabeth Babington said. "For a balancedneighborhood, you have to have a school system."

Weyerhaeuser officials are trying to put the best face on the situation.

"There are many examples of planned communities without schools on site,"said J.J. McCament, general manager of Northwest Landing. "If you look atfree-standing subdivisions, there are a lot of kids that ride eight to 10miles on a bus. But yes, it would be wonderful to have a school here."