Mill Creek, the city, likes it that way

By KERRY GODES
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

For the past few weeks, Joni Weber has been besieged by phone calls.

As city manager of Mill Creek, Washington's newest city, Weber is being sought out by elected officials, citizens and reporters interested in the Woodinville, Sea-Tac and Federal Way incorporation movements.

They want to know what's happened to her city's budget, its tax rates, police force, planning efforts and population since it incorporated in 1983. Patiently, she reels off the statistics.

"I think it really shows people's frustration with the county," Weber says of her sudden popularity.

Mill Creek is in Snohomish County, and the proposed incorporation areas arein King County, but the residents who favor city-hood share similar concerns.

Weber says people living in Mill Creek wanted more control over land-use decisions. They also wanted to see their tax dollars return to the community, and they wanted faster police service.

Most say they got what they asked for. But a few concerns -- especially overthe lack of public parks -- remain.

After incorporation, Mill Creek's property tax rates dropped by about 19 percent and have stayed below Snohomish County's, Weber says.

The city also formed its own police department, which will soon have eight officers.

It built its own library to replace bookmobile service. And it completed street projects where traffic threatened to clog neighborhood intersections.

City officials are now at work on a comprehensive land-use plan, although city zoning codes are already stiffer than the county's, Weber says.

The city's budget this year is $6.8 million, up from about $1 million during its first full year of incorporation.

"I just think it was a great thing to do for the area," says Tracy Grayson, a City Council member since incorporation. "It doesn't sound like much, but it's nice to be able to respond immediately (to local concerns) without having to go whine to some other entity."

Grayson at first she refused to back incorporation.

"I wanted to investigate it on my own, because they all seemed to be stumping for incorporation," she says. "But, by the time I finished, I was aproponent. In fact, I got so excited I ran for office -- and I've never done that before."

Incorporation hasn't been entirely easy.

The city operates on a tight personnel budget and just hired its first public works employee. It pays the local community association to do street work.

City Hall has been moved three times in five years, although the city bought land and an unfinished building for a permanent location last year.

"We were kind of working off the street corner for a time there," says Sid Hanson, who served as the first mayor.

The area is expanding quickly, and many acres have been gobbled up by developers. Most of the town's open space belongs to the original developer orthe homeowners' association.

However, the City Council recently voted to annex more than 300 acres, including potential park land.

"There's a critical shortage of active recreational opportunities in Mill Creek," says Rich Greiling, outgoing chairman of the Planning Commission. Greiling unsuccessfully competed for a City Council seat during the same election that formed the city of Mill Creek, arguing that the issues hadn't been researched fully.

"If incorporation did happen, I wanted to be a voice in the dark," he says.

Greiling was particularly concerned about the cost of building and maintaining public facilities.

"The city's doing a reasonable job -- I'm not faulting it," he says. "Butthose are problems they're grappling with today. They don't have a public works department. Some of the streets already have potholes."

Planned by United Development Corp. of Japan, Mill Creek has always had strict development standards. And that's the way residents -- some of whom paidup to $1 million for their homes -- like it, says Hanson.

Hanson says incorporation seemed a natural step.

"There was a lot of revenue generated in the community that certainly wasn't coming back," he says. "That's not being critical of the county, but recognizing that the county couldn't favor one area over another."

Hanson was instrumental in recruiting some of the city's first staffers. Among his neighbors he found a retired police chief to serve as a law enforcement consultant, a temporary city manager who had worked for Redmond and Edmonds, and an experienced attorney to set up city procedures.

Mike Echelbarger, one of the area's biggest developers, was also one of itsfirst. He and the city have had disagreements about the signs he used on his neighborhood shopping center, Village by the Creek, Echelbarger says. But overall he thinks he's been treated fairly.

The city has taken some lumps along with the changes and Hanson says he knows Mill Creek has some critics.

"But the thing they'll see as time goes on," he says, "is the general maintenance of the public properties is going to adhere to a very high standard and that's all part of the planning. There won't be any extra charges."