Gritty dowager (HWP, sort of) seeks LTR with unattached. Looks and income not important. No smokers, no gamblers, no long-distance relationships. Do you want mature yet young at heart? You want me. Do you crave TLC? I’ve got plenty. Do you like moonlit beach walks? Walk mine. Do you like culture and nightlife? Try me. I believe in destiny. Do you?

Tired of passively waiting for a love interest, a faction of Tacoma leaders wants to hatch an aggressive, proactive campaign to woo more folks who live outside the city’s fringes to annex in.

The targets – Browns Point, Dash Point, Fife Heights, a pocket near Meadowpark Golf Course, Midland and Parkland at least south to State Route 512 and perhaps as far as Pacific Lutheran University.

“I believe we should be aggressive,” said Councilman Rick Talbert, chairman of the City Council’s Economic Development Committee. “I believe we should develop some marketing materials. We spend a lot of money marketing ourselves regionally, nationally and globally. But we don’t do a good job of selling ourselves at home. We let others brand us when we really have a lot to offer.”

Over the last 10 years, Tacoma hasn’t sold itself, schmoozed the neighbors or done much more than answer the phone when a potential annexee calls.

“It would be misleading to give the impression that there’s an annexation program,” said Alisa O’Hanlon, the city’s government relations coordinator. “We don’t invest any money in annexation activity. There’s no nice, nifty brochure.”

O’Hanlon answers the phone when someone calls with interest. She describes the annexation process then leaves it up to the outsiders to pursue a relationship – or not.

“Annexation is a topic the city’s been passive on,” she said. “If it happened to us, it happened to us.”

Consequently, over the last 10 years, the annexations have dribbled in as onesies or twosies. The largest came in September when owners of 24 parcels in Dash Point opted in to get better police coverage from Tacoma than they did from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

Talbert and his committee members – Connie Ladenburg, Bill Evans and Spiro Manthou – have asked O’Hanlon for a strategy outline, including a marketing plan and budget estimate, that they can present to the council for endorsement. The big question: Will property owners jilt Pierce County for Tacoma’s proposal?

“My position has always been if it’s put up to a vote of the people in that area, fine,” said County Executive John Ladenburg. “If they want to stay with the county, fine. If they want to go with the city, fine. I wouldn’t try to promote it or stop it.”

Similarly, at PLU – where the mailing address already reads, “Tacoma, WA 98447” – spokesman Greg Brewis described the official position on a potential annexation to Tacoma as neutral.

Most often, Ladenburg said, folks will pay a little more in taxes to join a city but gain more in public services, such as police and fire protection. If, for example, if you live outside Tacoma and already get water and electricity from Tacoma Public Utilities, you pay up to 20 percent nonresident surcharge. With annexation, that goes away.

“The question people have to answer is, ‘Do you think that’s worth of admission?’” Ladenburg said.

The financial effects – both on Tacoma’s cost of providing service and tax rates on property owners and business – varies from area to area. So Tacoma’s annexation plan will involve financial analyses by an independent consultant, O’Hanlon said. A 2005 Tacoma-funded study conducted by Tom Nesbitt of Nesbitt Planning & Management Inc. of Seattle estimated that if Tacoma annexed Browns Point and Dash Point, the financial outcome “is as close to a wash as anything I’ve ever seen.”

O’Hanlon advised council members that successfully persuading folks on the fringe to join Tacoma might hinge on the council’s clarity about why Tacoma wants them. For economic development? To smooth out the city’s jagged boundary lines? Or purely for population growth?

“Just off the top of my head,” Talbert said, “it makes no sense that everything north of (Highway) 512 isn’t in Tacoma. We can improve their services while giving us space and places for economic growth.”

Economic growth? Blah, blah, blah. Tacoma’s personal ad should push the prestige-and-revenge factor of an alliance. After all, Tacoma trails Spokane 201,600 souls to 199,600. And that Eastern Washington burg passed Tacoma only after it annexed its suburbs.

I can picture the billboards, “Join Tacoma and make us No. 2 again.”

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com