Tag Archives: McCormick Woods

McCormick Woods Rumor Patrol

The Port Orchard City Council, Mayor Lary Coppola and city officials will host a Q&A session on the proposed McCormick Woods annexation at 7 p.m. Wednesday (tomorrow) at the Clubhouse at McCormick Woods.

One of the first questions they’ll address is whether Bremerton can annex McWoods via a vote of Bremerton’s citizens that would leave McCormick Woods residents entirely out of the loop. The short answer is, they can’t.

That according to city attorney Greg Jacoby, with whom I spoke tonight at the City Council meeting.

I’ve been trying to figure this out since I, as a McCormick Woods resident, received a mailing from the City of Port Orchard marked “annexation ballot enclosed,” which was sent out around the end of September.

City officials have made no secret of the fact that they would welcome a McCormick Woods annexation. The process was set in motion by a Q&A session hosted about a year ago by then-Mayor Kim Abel. The city has legitimate incentives to seek a McCormick Woods annexation, among them property tax revenue from McCormick Woods homeowners and increased access to state and federal grants as a larger jurisdiction, although there has also been talk of the contribution McWoods residents would potentially make on the city council.

On more than one occasion, PO officials have pledged their support of any organized effort on the part of McCormick Woods residents to annex. The city, as a gesture of support, picked up the tab for the mailing, which included:

* An invitation to the Q&A session.

* A list of “Advantages of Annexation,” drawn up by members of the McCormick Woods annexation committee (made up of McWoods residents who have organized the annexation petition drive and who have concluded, through their research, that annexation to Port Orchard holds significant advantages to residents).

* An individual copy of the annexation petition, ready for signatures.

* A letter from Mayor Coppola warning of the consequences, should McWoods residents decline to annex into PO. The alternative … dare we speak it? Bremerton.

Coppola noted that Bremerton in a recent update of its comprehensive plan included McCormick Woods in its expanded urban growth area. Bremerton City Council President Will Maupin has said that if McCormick Woods residents came to Bremerton with a petition to annex, that city would be open to accommodating them, but, Maupin added, historically, McWoods has been thought of as logically belonging within PO city limits and Bremerton did not have any plans to derail a McWoods annexation into PO.

Yet in the mailing to McWoods residents, Coppola writes, “considering Bremerton’s aggressive expansionism as illustrated by the Port of Bremerton and SKIA, you can only wonder what it must have in mind for the long term future of McCormick Woods.”

Oh, yeah, that SKIA thing. It’s no secret that Port Orchard has been stung by Bremerton’s reticence to guarantee that PO will provide sewer service to South Kitsap Industrial Area, according to a 2003 memorandum between PO and the Port of Bremerton. POB is the primary landowner within the 3,400-acre SKIA, slated for industrial development. Bremerton earlier this year accepted a petition by landowners in SKIA North, representing 150 acres of the SKIA puzzle, to annex. PO recently pressed the county’s Boundary Review Board, charged with vetting the proposed annexation of SKIA into Bremerton, to hold a public hearing on SKIA North. Bremerton has also approved a petition to annex SKIA South (the rest of the acreage, including land held by the POB) and it is likely PO will call for a formal challenge of that proposal as well.

So where were we? Oh, yes, Coppola’s letter to McWoods residents. Coppola said that since a portion of McCormick Woods (McCormick North, a.k.a The Ridge) is contiguous with land on Anderson Hill Road that is part of the City of Bremerton, Bremerton could annex that area “by a simple majority vote of its existing citizens.” I did a reality check with Coppola via e-mail last week, asking what citizens he was talking about, and he replied back “Bremerton’s.”

I also checked with James Weaver, Port Orchard’s Development Director, who was under the same impression. Both Coppola and Weaver referenced a no contest clause residents of The Ridge signed prohibiting them from opposing any proposed annexation.

Weaver said, “The Ridge is abutting the City of Bremerton existing City Limits (formerly known as Northwest Corporate Campus) and, from my understanding, may be annexed upon request by the City of Bremerton without vote or McCormick initiated petition.”

Weaver, in his e-mail to me referenced the Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington publication on annexation as a source of information on the methods by which an annexation may be achieved. Among them is an election process initiated by a city council that wishes to annex a given area, but, as I read in the fine print, the people who ultimately get to vote are not the residents of the municipality seeking to annex the area, but the residents of the area to be annexed.

Weaver also deferred to the city attorney on the issue, saying he is not the authority on annexation law. Jacoby said McCormick Woods residents would definitely be the ones to vote on an annexation with Bremerton. But what if … I asked … Bremerton only wanted to annex the Ridge, which can’t object because of the no contest clause. Jacoby said he’d get back to me on that scenario, which, I admit, is highly speculative. I mean, why annex The Ridge and not the rest of McCormick Woods? But surely it’s a question residents of The Ridge will want answered.

To add to the confusion, the McCormick Woods annexation committee also bought into the Bremerton-take-over idea. In its “advantages” list, the committee said that inaction on a McWoods-PO marriage would mean “we could do nothing and still be annexed into the City of Bremerton with or without our consent.”

According to Jacoby, that’s not true.

It does not appear the mayor or the annexation committee were being duplicitous, just misinformed. Jacoby said he first learned of Coppola’s assertions about a possible McTake-over by Bremerton this morning.

During a discussion with the City Council on Wednesday’s upcoming Q&A on McWoods, Coppola sought a different tone regarding other jursidictions and their relationship to McWoods. The reference was actually to Kitsap County’s budget burden, especially if Silverdale incorporates. But, to me, Coppola seemed to be backpedaling when he said of city officials conduct at the annexation meeting, “I don’t think we want to denigrate anybody. I don’t think that makes us look good. … We’re going to take the high road.”

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Waterless in South Kitsap

I woke up this morning in my usual fog, so it took me a minute to realize no water was coming out of the tap I’d just turned on.

I went out into the kitchen. “Did we forget to pay the water bill?” I asked my husband.

He checked on the neighbor’s house and found they had no water either. Nor did our friends down the street.

I looked on the City of Port Orchard Web site, and there was the answer: a water main break in McCormick Woods, leaving more than 800 people without H2O, the cause as yet unknown. I suddenly had a burning desire to brush my teeth.

Earlier, public works staff couldn’t estimate how long it would take to fix the main. Just minutes ago, the city updated the post to say water would be back on about 11 a.m. We’ll get by until then. There’s juice in the fridge. My fellow journalists will have to put up with me, un-showered. Sorry guys.

Turning on the tap for clean water is something we may take for granted, but according the UNICEF, 1.1 billion people worldwide only have access to unsafe water sources.

The federal Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. This year one of its mandates has trickled down to the City of Port Orchard, which will join Kitsap County and neighboring cities in developing a storm water management plan. Upgrading systems, building new facilities and setting up a schedule for maintenance and operations are among the tasks the city must accomplish to be in compliance with state and federal law. Implementing the plan is expected to cost the city $1 million over the next six years with the self-sustaining storm water fund to be covered by rate payers and, hopefully, grants.

Yes, that means City of Port Orchard residents will get a new utility bill as the storm water program is implemented. (McWoods gets its water from PO. As county residents, at least for now, we pay our storm water fees to Kitsap County.)

Port Orchard’s storm water rate for single-family homes has been suggested at $7.50 per month. Business, commercial and public property rates, however, have been estimated at $130 per month per acre of “impervious surface unit.”

Mayor Lary Coppola expects push back from the public. At a recent work-study session with the city council, he said he wanted to make clear that the city is operating under mandates from the state’s Department of Ecology and subject to sanctions if they don’t comply. The city is already behind schedule for implementing the storm water plan.

The suggested rates are really just a starting point for the council’s discussion of same, which will take place early in 2009 with a public hearing before amounts are finalized.

The city has yet to firm up estimates of cost and revenue, which will dictate rates. So stay tuned. Mark Dorsey, Port Orchard’s new public works director, said at the work study that budgeting for the new utility would be challenging until the city has conducted an inventory of its current system and inventoried the total amount of impervious surfaces to be assessed. (That’s how I put it in today’s Kitsap Sun article.)

What Mark really said was until those inventories are completed, the city is working with “scientific wild-ass guesses.”

My thoughts: Well, at least it’s better than unscientific wild-ass guesses.

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No Organized Opposition to McWoods Annexation But …

The McCormick Woods annexation committee is ready to move forward with a petition that could make McCormick Woods Urban Village a part of the City of Port Orchard. A story on the latest developments will run tomorrow.

While no organized opposition to the proposed annexation has emerged, at least one resident, Pat Lowery, has approached Bremerton city officials to gauge their interest in annexing McCormick Woods.

“From the very beginning, we got only one side of the story,” said Lowery. “’We’ve got to join Port Orchard and stay away from big, bad Bremerton.’ … My whole attitude on this was let’s look at both sides of the issue.”

Lowery does not favor a Bremerton annexation over Port Orchard, but he thinks residents should hear what Bremerton might have to offer. He e-mailed Mayor Cary Bozeman, who forwarded the inquiry to city council members.

“My guess is it’s probably premature for them or me to comment on this issue,” Bozeman said. “We’ve been pretty much preoccupied with the SKIA issue.”

Bremerton has accepted a proposal to annex from property owners in the 3,400-acre South Kitsap Industrial Area. Port Orchard has been pressing for the right to provide sewer service to the area, slated for industrial development.

Bremerton City Council President Will Maupin said the council has in the past discussed the possibility of a McCormick Woods annexation. But the consensus was that its location — in South Kitsap — made it more logically affiliated with Port Orchard.

McCormick Woods Urban Village is eligible for annexation into Bremerton because The Ridge at McCormick Woods, a development on the north side of Old Clifton Road, is contiguous with a large parcel of land within the city of Bremerton, now under development.

Hypothetically speaking, Maupin said, Bremerton would be open to considering a McCormick Woods annexation, provided a financial analysis showed revenues and expenditures “pencil out” for the city.

“If they were interested in being annexed into Bremerton and approached us with a petition, we would certainly analyze the situation,” Maupin said. “If it were going to be a big burden on the rest of the people of Bremerton, we probably wouldn’t do that.”

Because McCormick Woods is a relatively affluent urban growth area, the balance of property tax revenue to expenditures for police services would probably be advantageous to the city, Maupin said.

He added, however, that Bremerton would not try to derail a McCormick Woods-Port Orchard match-up. Referencing Port Orchard’s increasingly aggressive stance on the SKIA sewer issue, he said, “We would not and have not said a word about the current annexation into Port Orchard, and we won’t. Port Orchard has been causing problems with our annexation of SKIA, which isn’t anywhere near Port Orchard.”

Annexation committee member Dick Davis said he doesn’t believe there is significant support among McCormick Woods residents for a Bremerton annexation. But Lowery, and whoever else may be a of similar mind, has committee members feeling uneasy.

“I don’t know how large it is. Maybe it’’s a group of one,” said Davis. “I think it is, but I don’t think you want to ignore this thing. It creates seeds of doubt.”

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