Ruston Mayor Bruce Hopkins is the first one to admit it: Something’s gotta give.
Given the current financial projections, the 860-person town nestled between Tacoma and Point Defiance Park will either have to reduce services or face the possibility it may cease to exist, he said.
“It’s bleak to say the least,” Hopkins said Monday of the $3 million budget. “As a businessman, I know we have to plan for the next five to seven years. We have to make tough decisions right now for our town to exist five years from now.”
Last Friday, officials from Ruston sat down with their counterparts from Tacoma for preliminary talks about the possibility of annexation.
“I’d describe it as a fact-finding discussion,” Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson said, noting the talks also touched on contracting for some city services.
Hopkins stressed that Ruston isn’t going to disappear any time soon.
“What we have in reserve will make it four to five years if we continue with our same burn rate,” he said. The town has seen rising costs for public safety, which make up nearly 40 percent of the city’s $1.1 million general fund expenditures. Increased development has also necessitated increased spending for planning and legal services, he said.
To balance this year’s budget, the town is taking $550,000 from a $3.87 million surplus property fund, records show. At the current rate of depletion, that fund would last through 2015.
“Overnight we went from a sleepy little town to more of a growth area,” he said. “Reality’s kind of slapping us in the face right now.”
As Hopkins sees it, there are three options: do nothing and face insolvency, ask voters if they want to remain an independent town (if not, the whole matter is moot), or pare down government services until development starts bringing in more revenue.
A plan to save Ruston would need to include attracting new business, he said.
Work is well under way on two major developments expected to change the town’s character: The Commencement, a six-story condominium building, and Point Ruston, the large mixed-use project on the former site of the Asarco smelter, a portion of which is in the town limits.
“Point Ruston is not going to be our complete savior,” Hopkins said. “We need to work on other aspects of our town. A lot of things have to happen right for us.”
Councilman Wayne Stebner, who placed a discussion about annexation on the March 2 council agenda, linked the current shortfall to loss of the smelter in the 1980s.
“We were a company town,” he said. “We don’t have a company anymore. We have to explore all of our options. We can’t live on residents alone.”
Karen Pickett, who runs the Ruston Home blog, thinks it’s too soon to be throwing around the ‘A’ word. Rather the town should be focusing its limited energy and resources on economic development, she said.
“We’ve got a lot that’s very valuable that we’d lose by being just another neighborhood in Tacoma,” Pickett said. “You have access to your elected officials in ways you don’t have in Tacoma – you see them walking the streets.”
Ian Demsky: 253-597-8872
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