An estimated 25 people gathered at Edmonds City Hall on Thursday evening for the first of five town hall meetings hosted by the City of Edmonds. Titled “Annexation Answers: What the RFA Vote Means for You,” the session was aimed at exploring and listening to citizens about the issues surrounding the upcoming decision of whether Edmonds would be best served by annexing to the Regional Fire Authority/South County Fire or pursue other options to provide fire protection and emergency medical services (EMS).
“This is the first in a series of town halls that the city is doing exploring potential annexation into the Regional Fire Authority/South County Fire,” began Mayor Mike Rosen as he welcomed attendees. “Each individual here will get to make that choice on April 22. We all make decisions in different ways, and we want to make sure that any questions you have are answered so that you can make that decision personally.”
The program began with a presentation by Councilmember Vivian Olson exploring the issue of annexation and what it means to individual citizens, property owners and taxpayers including services, costs and more.
She began with an overview of the range of services provided by Edmonds to its citizens, stressing that Edmonds is a “full-service city,” which traditionally includes fire and EMS along with parks, streets, economic development and public utilities. She went on to provide an overview of the history of fire service in Edmonds, and how we went from a city-run fire department to contracting for these services with Fire District 1 (now the South County Fire Regional Fire Authority) in 2010.
With the contract between Edmonds and South County Fire ending in December 2025, Olson summarized the options and projected costs for continuing to provide fire and EMS beyond the end of the contract. She went on to compare costs for providing these services should voters approve annexation with the costs should voters turn down annexation, particularly focusing on the property tax impacts. She also explored the significant impacts of this choice – whether annexation is approved or not – on the city’s current fiscal emergency. (See the PowerPoint presentation here).
“We are personally and individually going to be making the call for what happens in Edmonds regarding how we get fire and emergency medical services in the future,” she concluded.
Next up was Christie Veley, South County Fire communications director, who began by tracing the cost increases to provide Edmonds with fire protection and EMS since contracting began in 2010.
“For example,” she explained, “the cost of a fire truck in 2010 was about $540,000 – the same truck today costs more than $1 million, almost double.”
She went on to explore the implications of joining the Regional Fire Authority, stressing that by choosing to annex citizens would be opting to pay the RFA directly for these services, rather than the current practice of paying the City of Edmonds, which in turn contracts with the RFA. She explored the other implications of this, including that Edmonds citizens would be able to vote for and run for the board of fire commissioners and would be able to vote directly on fire- and EMS-related ballot measures including levies.
Mayor Rosen then opened the session for questions and public comments.
Future town halls are scheduled as follows:
– Wednesday, March 5 at 6:30 p.m. in the Brackett Room at City Hall (121 5th Ave. N.)
– Thursday, March 27 at 6:30 p.m. in the Brackett Room at City Hall (121 5th Ave. N.)
– Saturday, April 5 at 10:30 a.m. at Edmonds-Woodway High School (7600 212th St. S.W.)
– Thursday, April 10 at 6:30 p.m. in the Brackett Room at City Hall (121 5th Ave. N.)
More information is available on the City of Edmonds Fire and EMS Annexation Ballot Info web page.
I was shocked at how few people attended this important Town Hall forum last night. The room holds 120 and most seats were empty. Only 18 actual Edmonds citizens showed up, plus the dozen or so public officials.
What happened? Last summer, the City hired Liz Loomis public relations, allegedly to promote awareness of this annexation issue, and paying them $2000 each week since then. Why no effort to build awareness of these Town Hall forums? We know there’s public interest out there~ Alicia Crank had four times more people at her annexation forum last Saturday.
Is the City strategy to put this issue under the radar? The City chose to omit Zoom coverage of this forum. There was no video made for posting on Youtube or the City’s cable channel. Is the City’s public relations consultant advising this low profile so citizens will cast fewer No votes against annexation?
The annexation controversy has been under way for months now, yet this forum was the first time the City heard questions from voters, asked and answered in a public forum. Why the delay? Why wait until five weeks before ballots are delivered to begin the civic conversation with Edmonds voters?
So many questions, so few good answers. Very troubling.
I was disappointed in the meeting for several reasons. The State law (RCW 42.17A.555) requiring public officials (RFA and City) to be neutral and provide equal speaking opportunity for advocate and opposition parties was not followed. The City and the RFA had the podium for 30 min each to advocate for annexation. Then audience members were given 2 minutes to state their comments or questions, If they wanted continuous back/forth discussion, they had to go back in line and wait for 4-5 others to speak before they could return to the mic. This process clearly gave the Mayor and RFA the advantage of being able to frame their pitch or their responses. Audience members could not participate in a free flowing 2-way dialogue due to the 2-minute limit and disjointed speaking process. This process was anything but fair and neutral. The City distributed a 2-pg FAQ flyer that had the City’s Qs and As. This flyer was produced at taxpayer expense. The City should have provided 2 pgs of Qs and As and rebuttal space for both ‘pro’ and ‘con’ residents to be fair and neutral. Is the City going to commit to adding the ‘pro’ and ‘con’ FAQs on any future handouts, website postings, and mailers in the future? Is the City going to provide a fair and equitable speaker process in subsequent meetings?
Can we join the new Shoreline RFA? Do we have options and leverage to negotiate with South County Fire? Time to slow down, knowing we have service for next year?
Time to openly confront the elephant in the middle of the Living Room. City of Edmonds is ‘taking’ $6.5 MM from taxpayers that had previously gone exclusively towards Fire/EMS Services and using it to shore up other municipal services impact by the severe budget crisis. Siad crisis was created over many years of shoddy work by previous administations, previous elected officials and city staff. Bottom line, Edmonds property owners need and deserve quality Fire/EMS for the funds they already pay, with an amount added on for South County to run the show.
No, Edmonds cannot stand alone or re-establish their own department. The City population is too small for a fully staffed, 24/7 professional paid department. Fire EMS Departments and districts have been merging across the U.S. for the passt two-decades in order to gain some continuity of service and professionalism while saving on administrative costs and overhead. An excellent model would be TVF&R in Oregon.