Another Fire District 13 withdrawal attempt

Residents of the Channel Drive neighborhood north of La Conner submitted a petition with more than 100 signatures of voters who want to withdraw from Fire District 13.

Dave Buchan, Dennis Milliken and Martin Howard delivered the petition to Elections Supervisor Dave Cunningham in the Skagit County Auditors office on Monday.

The Elections Department has 10 days to check the signatures and make sure the petition is in order. In March, the county rejected a petition with 90 signatures seeking the same result – detachment from Fire District 13 – because the wording on the petition did not meet the legal criteria.

This time, at first glance it appears that the petition is crafted properly, Elections Supervisor Cunningham said. He said he and his staff had not had a chance to study it carefully on Monday, but if it is in good form and the voter signatures are valid, the petition could set in motion a process for the people to take their neighborhood out of Fire District 13 so they can annex to Fire District 2 on McLean Road.

The odds are pretty stiff, however, and Buchan acknowledges that.

Cunningham said that if the petition checks out OK, his office will send a letter to the Fire District 13 Board of Commissioners. The fire commissioners would then be required to hold public hearings and pass a recommendation on to the Skagit County Board of Commissioners.

If both governing bodies agree that the withdrawal is a good idea, the County Commissioners can pass a resolution granting it.

Fire District 13 covers territory on both sides of the Swinomish Channel, and surrounds the Town of La Conner, which has its own fire department. The vast majority of residents – more than 2,500 – served by District 13 are on the west side of the channel, mostly within the boundaries of the Swinomish Reservation. The area that wants to detach is in the northeast corner of the district, where there are only around 100 homes.

Fire District 13 Chief Roy Horn said he can’t say how his board will react to the withdrawal request. “On the one hand, you’ve got the urge to give people what they want,” he said. “But at the same time, the service we’re providing is excellent... From an operational point of view it’s hard to imagine how it will be beneficial to them.”

If one or both boards reject the idea, then the question could then be put to all the voters in Fire District 13, not just the portion that wishes to withdraw. The area seeking to withdraw is bounded by the Swinomish Channel on the west, the boundary of Fire District 2 on the east, the northern boundary of Fire District 13 and McLean and Downey roads on the south.

Buchan said the petitioners want to withdraw from Fire District 13 to be annexed to Fire District 2. He said the District 2 commissioners are aware of the potential annexation request and are supportive.

District 13 is headquartered on Snee Oosh Road on the Swinomish Reservation on the other side of the Swinomish Channel from their neighborhood – which means its rigs must travel through Swinomish Village, across the Rainbow Bridge, through La Conner and up La Conner Whitney Road to reach their neighborhood.

District 2, with a station on McLean Road is closer, and is a straight shot down the road to Channel Drive. Also, Skagit County Medic One keeps an ambulance staffed with paramedics at the McLean Road fire station.

The area wishing to detach from District 13, the sparsely populated northeast quadrant, accounts for about a quarter of the District 13 land mass, but there are fewer than 200 registered voters living there.

In contrast, close to half the district lies within the boundaries of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community reservation, where there are about 2,300 registered voters.

Should the issue be put to a vote, Cunningham said, under normal circumstances, the petitioners would have to pay for a special election – something that can be very costly. Cunningham said there have been special elections costing as much as $40,000.

Nevertheless, it’s worth a try, Buchan, Milliken and Howard all say. But should the proposal fail to garner approval from the commissioners of both governing boards, they say their plan could be dead in the water since the 100 voters can’t afford to pay for an election.

Fire District 13 logged a total of 1,467 calls during the first seven months of this year, according to documents presented to its board of commissioners last month.

As of Monday, according to 911 logs, the district has been dispatched to the quadrant that wishes to withdraw a total of 11 times so far this year. Just one of those 11 calls were to Channel Drive, where the majority of the voters live.

Although neighborhoods east of the Swinomish Channel – which include about another 250 voters in the Pleasant Ridge and Rexville areas – generate a small fraction of the district’s calls, county figures have demonstrated that those taxpayers shoulder nearly 30 percent of the district’s property tax burden.