Groups feud over Puyallup annexation signatures
MELISSA SANTOS; The News Tribune
A group of landowners urged a Pierce County board Tuesday to throw out petitions the City of Puyallup is using to try to annex property northeast of the city.
The Pierce County Boundary Review Board held a public hearing to listen to concerns regarding the city’s proposed annexation of North Puyallup, a 305-acre unincorporated area northeast of the city limits.
Opponents of the annexation, led by North Puyallup businessman Mike Stanzel, said Puyallup officials are using expired petitions to show that a majority of North Puyallup property owners want to join the city.
“Petitions in the state of Washington are only valid for six months,” said Rick Aramburu, Stanzel’s attorney. “You don’t gather signatures over a period of years and years and years, and then decide to use them in a particular place.”
About 20 landowners requested earlier this year that the Boundary Review Board examine the North Puyallup annexation proposal and the landowner petitions, as did the Pierce County Council. Had there been no objections, the annexation would have gone forward Aug. 31.
Puyallup city officials said Tuesday that property owner signatures gathered back in 2006 can legally apply to an annexation effort in 2009.
“We’re following the guidance of the (state) Supreme Court,” said Kevin Yamamoto, assistant city attorney for Puyallup.
For a city to annex an area by petition, landowners representing at least 60 percent of the assessed property value of the area must sign petitions in favor of being annexed.
The City of Puyallup collected most of its landowner signatures from North Puyallup property owners in 2006, during a previous effort to annex the area.
But those 2006 documents weren’t ordinary petitions; they were forms that gave the City of Puyallup limited power of attorney to approve future annexation proposals on a landowner’s behalf.
Subsequently, Puyallup City Manager Gary McLean signed a petition approving a new annexation effort this year on behalf of more than 150 North Puyallup landowners who previously signed power-of-attorney documents.
Yamamoto said state law permits cities to use power-of-attorney documents instead of petitions during annexation proceedings.
“When you have large annexations where there are hundreds or perhaps even thousands of participants, a practical way to avoid the expiration of the six-month signature is to use a power of attorney,” Yamamoto said, “The power-of-attorney signatures do not expire.”
Aramburu, Stanzel’s attorney, said that many people signed the documents in 2006 mainly because leaders of the petition drive misled them into thinking that they would lose fire service if they didn’t join the City of Puyallup. Property owners also weren’t clear that they weren’t signing a normal petition, he said.
Other North Puyallup property owners supported the city’s proposal on Tuesday, saying there was nothing misleading about the way annexation proponents collected petitions.
“Residents were never told they would not have emergency services,” said property owner Kristy Jenkins, who served on the citizens committee that collected petitions. “The property owners we were in contact with were well aware they were signing a power-of-attorney document, and they had no problem in doing so.”
The five-member Boundary Review Board will review testimony from Tuesday’s hearing during the next two weeks and meet again Dec. 1 to issue a decision.
Melissa Santos: 253-552-7058
melissa.santos@thenewstribune.com
