City Council Discussion over Annexing the Fire Service Vote
Disclaimer:
Everything below is a mix of what I observed and heard during the event. The goal isn’t to pinpoint "who exactly said what," but to share (usually) an outsider's view and overall perspective on these industries. I’m not here to act as a definitive firsthand source—readers should do their own research. I hope this inspires you to attend events, explore new industries, and hear what leaders are presenting. These notes combine my observations with thoughts on how things could run smoother and how ideas connect (IMO). I’m not an expert, you know? Just hanging out in the room with them. Enjoy!Topics Discussed: Local Businesses, Taxes, Budgeting, Expenses, Prioritizing, Monopolies, Communication
A local city was meeting to decide if they should do whatever everyone else nearby is doing… and annex their fire services. This debate was sent out as an invitation for the public to join, so I agreed to take part. I’d never been to anything like this, so why not go!! It was two hours and strictly moderated, filled with presentations, discussions, Q&A, and a lot of learning. It was a first of its kind… but probably not the last. :)
Why Attend? This town nearby is very great. They have a lot to offer… and then I wasn’t even sure what “annexing” meant, so I figured this would be a good way to learn a new word. Also, I am always just a tiny bit curious about the firefighting industry for superficial reasons. I will tell more below… but, yeah. I just thought it’d be a very interesting event, interesting to hear two sides of a debate laid out, see which one made more sense to me, and I was just really curious to see what I thought of it all.
Overall Event Review: Venue: 5/5, Food: 0/5, Speaker Content: 5/5, Networking: 3.5/5, Likeliness to Return: 4/5
Photo College and Commentary:
Notes from the Event:
I enter a tiny bit late, but just found a seat in the back and began listening… To be honest, I’m not quite sure even what this vote/topic means. Let’s see if I can figure it out by the end.
“The elephant in the room: our budget challenges.” says the local leadership/politiican
btw… I learned that this city only has one councilperson… the majority of the government is hired out on short term contract basisisisisi?!??!??!?!!?!??!
Isn’t that surprising and crazy or is that just the new normal now and everyone is fine with their cities all being ran by consulants??? It made me more happy to be here and fighting for (a nearby) town… if not my own, hahaha.
We have been transparent about the deficit
Our situation is that years of increasing costs for services and unfunded state things have been holding them down
+39% increased in insurance, up over half a million dollars this year.
-Utilities are up about 5% and fuel is up 14%… while the city is only allowed to increase up to 1% per year. And that must be done through a general levy. Thathasn’t been done per year.
-The 1% increase we can ask for from the government would bring in 107,000 additionally annually. Hardly anything.
Property tax revenues are getting cut
Additional Problems, Why We Should Annex:
6.5 million in cuts already for the services of the government. They’re eliminating city staff and services.
Borrowing money and using resources to fund police and services that the residents want
Borrowing and use of reserves (but there are no more reserves)
But you can’t just keep borrowing money, that is not sustainable.
If annexation, the EMS levy will be eliminated.
Property owners will now pay for the services to teh RFA, no longer with the city turning around and paying for a contract
The city will continue toe with 72 gets off every 1000 of property value.
So there is a ballot measure and the residents of Edmonds decide what happens next with the future of fire. Annexation is being proposed. Other counties have annexed into there places.
Others are some of the closes collaborating cities on all matters.
So it sounds like they have to do this or else they don’t have a way to take care of fires in the future. It’s too expensive and they can’t afford it.
There would be draconian cuts if future levy’s were to not pass
They’re looking in increases in tax revenue one way or the other
The city can not go further otherwise at this standard if this money doesn’t come in.
There are more city hall events over the next weeks and months. The Council is always available when you reach out by email. The council is amiable individually or as a whole group.
They will have calculators on the website. You can use to personalize your own home and see what the costs will be. Now they will take some questions:
Q&A Round 1, Interviewing Council
One thing we were able to do was submit questions.
One trend in questions overaching was communication and transparency. The current adinistration ran on a course of communication and transparency, but now community members are learning that this was not the case when they’re learning about things well after the fact.
They look at this new annexation, residents have discovered communications between the public affairs administration affairs hired and communication… (hard to keep up, but)
“You have also shared taht you have never had opposition on increasing the need for us to be more collaborative.”
How do you reply to the citizen’s concerns? Are their concerns warranted?
It’s an interesting question… several things bound up
The administration (not us, not council members) has contracting authority up to 150k and makes moves/purchases under that realm. We only have one communications person in the entire city. That person has a pretty full plate all year around doing the regular business of the city.
So when there is a huge communications project going on that takes a lot of effort, instead of hiring another full-time employee (when they were needed just short time) they were hired as a consultant, more temporary on the project.
Sorry to the impression to the public, but we bought a full-time employee for a part time
The work of the city can not be advocacy… the work can only be how we progressed.
Getting public information is now up to the people in the room, we so appreciate that, talk to your neighbors.
All communication is going to be imperfect.
With communication and transparency, it may have surprised peopel we need to have a consultant, but do you know why?? We haven’t gone out for a levy in a long time. We need to make sure we follow the rules according to election campaigns.
School boards do this all the time
I don’t remember the last time we had a vote that goes to the community that has significant importance
We have had training, we know how to be educators and distinguish between advocacy. This is something that is technically complicated and we spend probably an hour and a half at one of our council meetings about the roles we can and can’t take on. You saw the list of dates, we’re getting out there in teh community and appreciate the community support. We’re going everywhere to get the message out.
Questions prepared by local news and people in the audience can ask questions too.
Talk more about what would happen in the event the vote fails:
How much would that cost compared to the annexation?
It’s be a parody contract, costing the same as if they’re annexed.
But then we need to keep the costs of capital investments of the buildings and taking care of the buildings. We don’t have the money to pay for that contract for now.
You stated you don’t have the money to pay for the contract, but we know that there’s a levy planned, the “Levy Live Lift” for an election in 2025. So is it okay to assume if annexation is a vote “no” the size of the new levy would cover the cost of fire and EMS on a contract basis?
As a council, we haven’t prepared ourselves for that consideration.
As you know, I lead a program of volunteers that help moderate disabled senior citizens get cuts or eliminations for property taxes. The details are that if we pay through fire and RFA through annexation, people wh have received that don’t get any cut. But if we vote “no” now, but vote “yes” later, and individuals over 62 or disables (and net income - cost of medical = $75k or less, the taxes are forgiven). It’s a big deal. A huge deal. They are not going to pay for this increase if it’s paid for by the second ballot issue coming.
If we pay for it this way, no. “If there isn’t a ‘yes’ vote, then our highest priority isn’t funded.”
The RFA discount is attributed to fire tax (the fire statoion guy stands up and he says what she said isn’t true. He said that her last comment isn’t true.)
She said that, it isn’t true.
They had a disagreement.
The politician said she will get back to you.
The woman who started it steps up, she says, “when you report your net disposable income, the state looks at three different ranges, if you’re 64-76k, the range where most people apply, only voter approved levies are forgiven. There is a modest reduction, less than 10% in the assessed value for senior exceptions… I do this for hours and hours every day. Please vote “no”.
We do not have existing city staff, we’ve been served by contract and RFA personal since 2010.
WTF!!?!?!?!?! THIS CITY DOESNT HAVE STAFF??? THEY ARE SERVED BY CONTRACT SINCE 2010??!??!? IS THIS THE NORM IN AMERICA??? CITIES AE RUN BY CONTRACT!??!???!?!?!? ISN’T THIS HEARTLESS AND WILD???
50 year citizen asks how much this special collection asks how much the city is paying the county to put on the election.= She says that it costs about 250k for this vote, including the cost of mailing
He asks if this was a great use of public funds to have this single issue voted on (while we’re low on funds to begin with)??
oh snapppp!!! Everyone in the audience agreed and cheered.
She said they cannot wait until the next general election to solve this. This is information we need to have now to have the timeline expressed to make sure they get through all of the hurdles and processes for all the other budget things to make sure things flow smoothly. The next levy will be in November. We don’t know what that will look like.
This is an important issue that the voters decide, the city can’t decide, that’s the cost of doing business.
We haven’t yet talked about Edmonds on the board of commissioners for annexation.
A woman now is speaking who grew up here her whole entire life, but works for a nearby city now. One duty she has is dealing with money. She can confirm that the RFA is an approved voter approved measure and it is eligible for the discount for disabled for low income. It doesn’t happen here.
The woman who first said that this would be a problem is shaking her head . She is angry cause she thinks it is wrong (like everyone is saying she came forward with incorrect facts but she refuses to agree).
She said sometimes when she chimes in, it tends to take more rate, she said its good to have a representative to the board that knows well what is going on with the people and the government, and it helps change the decisions of the commissioners (the commissioners like to hear from peopel who work in the government and have to take care of the taxpayers dollars)
At other times meetings, people talk about how they won’t have control… you already have no control. No one comes and represents you here because we are a contracted city. Once you are annexed, you will… but until then, no. It may take until 2027 if we annex… then we will have two at-large positions, and two people from the city of edmonds can actually run. Then you can end up with two people from the city of Edmonds represent you.
oh sh*t!!! “you already have no control… we are a contracted city!” dang. But the guy above made a good point.. how much is this costing us? 250k?? You think 250k on this vote is a good use of money when we “have no money”??? Get ‘em! True.
I read and I see what’s going on in this situation. I will just say, we were in that same situation. We were looking at doubling costs… so let me say, “you live on this side of the street, it cots 75 cents per thousand… the people on the other side are pay $1.26”. Think about the services you want when you call 911… you want someone to come, a lady says.
As the cost for fire continues to increase with everything else, the people across the street, you’re asking them to pay for more for those services
As a taxpayer, if you said, “you need more money” but you knew the person across the street wasn’t paying their fair share, what would you say to them? You’d say “no” and that’s the position everyone is in right now.
Another question from a neighboring business guy… the questions we are asking, the city doesn’t answer at all.
The speech just given about “the other side of the street” points out one of the things that I’ve been very concerned about. The focus on the cost of service versus the cost on the price of service.
The RFA is a monopoly, they have the state given right to price anything how they want to
We’re talking about a price of service not a cost of service… we’ve asked “how many times, tell us the cost of your service”.
The recent 10 year contract was cost+base. The contract was ramped up, and annexation is ramping up another 70%.
Why does the RFA not manage their business to be able to produce a cost-based system?
This city’s citizens are now being asked to solve a problem that the RFA shoudl have faced and managed?
In 2016, we had a study on the city… that city was based on trying to look at different options going forward on how to reduce the costs of fire service. A detailed study on staffing, the difference between medical service and fire service. The recommendation said the city can save 1.5 million by optimizing staffing to provide for the 85% of 911 calls that are medical services.
Nothing was ever done. Then the city went in 2024 and had a study that didn’t deal with any of it.
The study wound up saying the RFA was the least cost-preferred alternative.
Why is there such a difference? And why don’t we get the 2016 study to be redone?
What type of alternative fire and staffing can be done?
She said they’re having a report from south county fire on Tuesday and come back then to review the report. They do review the report and have performance standards to make sure the right services are put to our community.
KELLY GOES UP TO GIVE A COMMENT to the COUNCIL!!!
(okay, I got such a kick lately out of speaking up at events, asking great questions…. and when I heard this guy say that they’d done studies in teh past showing the city can save millions of dollars by optimizing firestation staffing, I HAD to say something…)
I told them: I don’t live in this city, I am your neighbor. But I am also now single so I went on dates with your firefighters (story below for you all). And I said, they said the training takes months and months, they dont pass it so thy have to try again year over year, jsut wasting time. And even once they past, he said most of the time, all they do is pick people up off couches. So, yeah, I think money is being wasted.
(I went on one date with a firefighter, but also, funnily enough—- on the dating apps… Do you know the two people ALWAYS swipe me? The two types of people I’m always texting the most attention from? hahahaha - I had no clue this was a thing for “me” until I did research on these apps and noticed this trend…
The two people types that are always interested in me on dating apps are firefighters and Indians 😂. So, I went on a date with a few.
Obviously my comment got a huge reaction from the crowd. Laughing and shock… but I kinda knew that would happen here. I was the youngest person here by 20+ years (minus some fire fighters!! hahah) but I wanted to be a little rowdy, shake things up, but prove a good point..
Even later into this, you’ll see, so many times kinda the root/truth came up —- they said the fire fighters spend 80% of their time usually on EMS (emergency rescue services)… so, it shines light on this big picture that systems are unorganized and money is being mismanaged.
I felt like my crazy story really helped emphasize that guys point, that even the firefighters themselves don’t take their work that seriously since they can’t believe they spend so much time picking up peopel off couches, even the girls dating them know this. It’s becoming common knowledge that part of firefighting is not even firefighting - most of it. So, if we are going to now go into debt (this thing they’re proposing has one option of the city paying 20M to build a new fire station as an option) tehy should look at the reality. Why do we need this service so hevily, if they’re not even putting out fires? What if we beef up our EMS team?
I think a lot of money is going to waste.
Training takes years, everyone is getting kicked out
I didn’t have much more than a comment, but I think a lot of your money is going to waste.
ANOTHER QUESTION: NO IDEA
After I spoke I was so emotionally/nervelly shook. I couldn’t believe I’d said that aloud hahaha.
Then another guy asked a question, I sat down… but quickly after that it was a break.
A number of people came up to me and thanked me for sharing, made a joke or two.
With your questions, please send them into our specific email so that we can get them ahead of time on our website.
That’s where you can get researched answers, not just off the cuff.
Get that information for yourselves, from the city.
Next part is to take a quick break, connect with each other, then come back.
My question was a bit embarrassing/comment… but I called out them
This economist is like “we’re already paying 12.5M a year for fire, now we need to add 20M more to that?? How can we justify this difference?” so I just felt like supporting his comment. It makes perfect sense. The city can’t just turn to the city now that they mistmanaged their money. I like that this group is trying to stop this. And I like that this speech/event was planned.
Like I said, I think I know the girl who did this and I heard her talk about her mission before. She’s brave and awesome and we need her in every TOWN - not even ever city… if this is the case.
Community Discussion Second Half:
The community volunteers signed up to be pros/cons
Really happy they can do these things to be helpful for the community
The City Council has the legislative responsibility to appoint two committees to write ballot measure statements that will…. (Okay it went too fast I couldn’t’ see the rest)
The PROS community will give presentations back-to-back
Retired firefighter, lived in Edmonds since 1989
Quick perspective to add background before getting into figures and other politics. Know that the fire department was organized and formed in 1904, all volunteer with only 1k people in the city. Just a hose and a ladder to start, then in the 1920’s they purchased fire engines… no water capability but they could haul equipment.
Then they got the first in the region with a water tank and a pump in the 30’s
During the 30’s also started a first aid squad with a truck, responding to people in need even in the 30’s.
40’s and 50’s call loads and demand increased.
Incorporated a dispatch process in downtown Edmonds during the day int eh early 60’s we upstaffed to have 24hr service downtown to manage calls.
Later in the 60’s we hired more personal and we staffed the downtown station full-time staffed.
In the early 70’s we staffed a crew of 2-4 personalle 7 days a week. We put it up at the top of the hill and covered the entire city.
In the early 80’s the volume of calls and availability had us restaff additional people, was station 1, now its 17. Station 2 is now station 16.
In the 1980’s we had some incidents that we’re not going to get into, but numerous incidents where staffing was too low and the response affected the outcome. We couldn’t put out fires fast enough.
We added more people and met the need by having a minimum of 3 people staffed at all of our stations.
We merged with the fire industry in 2010. Then we benefitted from having the state build a fire training center up in North Bend, but it takes us out of service for full days when we go up there.
We do training and go up there.
Daily training is local, we have to do it. The job is too difficult (not only the fire job, but also EMS is 70-80% of the time. Not just picking people up, but taking care of people.
But still… is that the firefighters job?
The rescue boat allows us do a safer more effective job of surface water rescue and shipyard fire fighting. It was a homeland security grant. That cost was matched with a grant.
Due to the fact that the call load has increased remarkably (from under 100 calls in 1904, the 60’s had 300-400, 70’s is about 1,000 calls… last year was 63,000 calls/day. Without this, you will get worse care.
The city isn’t getting smaller and we’re not getting less busy. The needs are still growing.
Okay - all i’m going to say is… “world history”, even locally, is questionable. I do think most everything, if not all, he was saying was accurate as it can be. And it’s wild to hear how fast this industry/need is growing, so many calls a day!!! But again, most to the calls are EMS. We grew up watching tv shows about our cats getting stuck in tress so call the fire department!
The next speaker is a journalist and nonprofit consultant. She says they’re all up here spending their time to be here and not being paid to do it. They’re here to educate the city.
I’ve had interaction with the fire department here… your home can go up fast in fire.
Recently had to call EMS services for your mother.
You want people who are making split-second decisions to have the capability and ability to do the best job, that’s what they’re here for.
There is a general fund that pays for everything in the city we love: fires, police, parks, services…
Our city uses many services. We know we’re getting some of the best services in the country here. We have firefighters here who take care of us every day. We want to have the same firefighters taking care of us.
We are the biggest user of these services in the entire area… we are the largest users of these of anywhere, this city. The calls are increasing by 12% in the past four years.
We are underpaying for these services right now compared to everyone else. But we are using more services.
We need to become a part of the RFA and join this team.
We can’t delay, other options have been studied… nothing else allows us to pay the same price (certainly not less), every other option is more expensive.
We trust the South County fire to help us. We open the door to them because we know we can trust them.
They are doing the best they can with the resources they have.
There’s a reason private business doesn’t do Fire and EMS services.
They run out of time. The woman was super upset that suddenly she ran out of time (though they gave her a 2 minutes warning)
The CONs community will give presentations back-to-back
They are asked if they want to be nice and give 2 minutes to the “pro” team, since they went over time by mistake, but then they say “no… we’re not going to give them our minutes”
The first speaker begins, but he stands up and then walks to the middle of the room… The first speaker (the other speakers just sat down the entire time at the table, it was smart for him to do this and connect with the audience. Power move :)
Tell us what “Edmonds can do better” is about (his website)
It’s a group of concerned citizens who think the city can do better by hearing our voices and our input into the process. So we have a voice and say for how our city moves forward.
We help make difficult decisions that need to be made moving forward.
Getting conflated to talk about the annexation issues, but we’re getting caught up on the budgeting issue.
Let’s first thank our firefighters. (Only two are here, but we’re retired… surprising that no firefighters are here?)
At first he asked if anyone here was a firefighter and only two older men raised their hand… but spoiler alert: later a young firefighter went up to the mic and spoke, so idk where he was for this question.
Thanks to them for the work they provide and care… but, we’re still voting “no”
Understand that if we vote yes or no… we are not going to lose our fire protection service going forward.
The city has already made an agreement to carry forward. W’re not going to lose the fire protection service. It doesn’t jeopardize your public safety to vote “no”
Two questions:
1. How did we get here? South County Fire unilaterally terminated our contract early without cause.
2. Why did we get here? Edmonds is attractive to the RFA for our high tax base.
We’re here today to reconcile the cancellation notice.
Our current contract is a cost plus contract, fully wage negotiated with union benefits + the overhead (or a portion) of the RFA (which includes all the administrative types of things… one can argue the percentages).
Saying we’re not paying our fair share isn’t correct.
We’re paying our costs… the other municipalities are paying more than they should. We’re all getting the same quality service. We’re getting the same service as them, good service… but we’re not paying as much as others.
Those are questions relative to “what is the true cost of the service we are getting”
We got here because Edmonds has high property tax bases. It’s attractive for annexation. We currently pay 12M to the RFA for our services (and no one would suggest we have bad services)
Annexation brings our price up to 20M.
It’s attractive for them to come to a high property tax base, and get their price of the 20M contract.
In the next few charts, here are some other ideas for your consideration… turn it over to the next speaker (I like her style/personality/boldness)
Holy crap!! Her charts show that everyone’s taxes are going to double with this annexation!!!! Of course the “pro” team didn’t show this info!!
We want to protect our voting power, performance accountabilty, and future costs
Voting “yes” shows our taxes will go up 97%. Higher than needed increase in our property taxes
Why did the city hire a 6ok PR agent to help sell us on “yes” for this??? We are bankrupt/broke, having to borrow right now, and yet we are hiring someone 60k… a PR firm? To sell us on annexation? Not to mention the 250k to put it on the ballet.
Oh shittttttt!!!! GET THEM!!!
How did we find out about this? There was no transparency, even though the mayor told us? The only way was from a public records request…one for 8k as a payment to the PR firm.
WOWWWWWWWW - they did their own research and found the city was spending 65k for a PR AGENT FOR THIS IDEA??? AND THE VOTE IS 250K AND THEY HAVE NO MONEY? DANGGGGGG. What a story!!
This contract expires just after the ballot. We won’t need her services, she’s trying to sell it right now.
Is this a coincidence or collusion? Is this pure abuse of power?
You decide if they’re working together to sell us on this and if it can be trusted?
If annexation is such a good idea, why the secrecy and backroom deal?
Retired nurse with 50 years of experience… I appreciate fire fighters, but I’ll tell you right now what I see going on. This is not a discussion to be held, EMS vs Fire, but even so, we vote “no” on this.
28 year resident and retired cop.
I love fire fighters, they saved my bacon more than once.
They’ve been there 3 times to jumpstart my in-laws.
This isn’t what “we don’t like the firefighters and services”, we love them and want to see them remain. But we are concerned about costs and control. In the future, locals can run for the board and get into these positions.
All the nearby cities joined and are annexed, let’s do the same.
Maybe if we get lucky and have enough edmonds people vote for the edmonds we might get on the board, but someone else popular may get that place on the board.. then edmonds is left out.
There’s no guarantee we’ll have people on the board of commissioners and do a proper job of controlling costs.
We’re asking you to pause, vote no, extend the contract or renegotiate.
Given the size of our city and needs there are other options to provide quality protection for our lives and families.
Four people came up to me and said “thanks for your input”, thanks for your comment, etc
FINAL CONCERN OF THE PRO/CON TEAMS
PRO:
17% reduction to the general fund of the city.. may have to sell off city assets like the community centers
CON:
It’s all about costs, our current contract from 12 to 20M…if a 8M cost boost isn’t a red flag, idk what is
CITIZENS QUESTIONS AND THE PANEL ANSWERS:
A fire fighter in the city speaks. He asked what are some things the city will cut if this fails?
It’s coming down to the number of firefighters that is staffing our stations.
We are getting a fair deal with what we have, we’re getting the service we contracted for.
The only way you make up that is by adding 70% of fire stations
Response time is basically a distance phenomenon…
What does that 8M pay for that we’re not already getting…? (The firefighter seems confused, if we spend 20M on this, what will we cut?) Idk.
Then everyone just says to him he’s not listening by asking this question over and over again!!! loll omg.
Actually, this moment was a little funny cause the firefighter kept asking the same question over and over again and they’d ask him, but then he’d be like, no… i’m asking THIS. And then people in the audience were like “yeah! we know!! listen, she’s telling you” and then the answer was never understood it seems.
We’re advocating to get the city to prioritize other revenue sources for the city… outside of taxes… how can we increase this?
We need to ask “how much money do we really need??? Just pause, let’s get the full transparency, see the full financial needs THEN come and vote on what we really need, not just piece by piece”
Resident for over 15 years is here, usually is so uninterested in city affairs… but now his wife has dragged him into this. What I don’t understand, I’m not an attorney, I don’t even play one on tv… you had a contract… so, how can anyone break the terms of the contract midstream? Am I missing something?
Probably better answered by the RFA: based on what I know, the contract we executed allows for either party to terminate 5 years before allowed, within the permitters. Likewise, the city had the opportunity to do it as well.
He asks if that’s accurate… another guy speaks up and says, “yeah... you are correct. It was legal, but the fact that the RFA cancelled it was perfectly legal. But they did it a month before a new mayor took office and didn’t take time to renegotiate it. They didn’t elect to go down that path with our new mayor, they cancelled before he took office.”
“So now they discovered that we have a high tax base and now they want our money? Come on, spit it out! It’s okay.”
Yes is the best things for Edmonds at the best price… (but it’s very difficult to negotiate a monopoly)
The Herald Journalist speaks in: the RFA can cut it as long as they give fair notice. They did. The city of Edmonds was one of the only cities still contracting with them, they were paying a lower cost than other cities…
We are a lower cost and higher price
Resident for 32 years… I know we have a huge budget crisis, taxes have to go up, probably more things cut… but, we all need to be able to rely on excellent services from the fire department and police. I’ve had to use them two times in Edmonds. I used the Fire Department in Federal Way when my husband dies. We need to pay for those services, and one of my issues I learned about… w have a fire department past its useful life and needs to be replaced. If we join the RFA, they have reserves and they can cover that cost.
If we vote this down and have a fire station that has to be replaced, who is going to pay for it? We don’t have the reserves or tax base as a city.
We’re working to advocate for tax increases for the fire department to be mitigated.
We all have things to pay for, I wish I could get things for free.. but it’s time to stop asking everyone else to pay for us.
Resident wants to talk about the museum and arts center. She lived in NYC and the arts museums she was always a member of. If you ask if I pick Arts over EMS/FIRE, I’d pick safety over arts. I’m voting for Edmonds controlled fire department instead of having to give up an arts center.
Tell us the fees versus the cost
At the last presentation, they said any way we look at it, the difference is going to be about less than 2M for us to have our own… but we would control it
RFA will have additional services (which we already have) so please talk about cost vs. fees, and the numbers to have our own services or associate with another town.
ANSWER: We need to take the time to explore those options
Omg this is such a common answer… they say this nonstop.
They want to look more at reports and ultimately decide if it is or isn’t a good option, but an overlooked column said that an Edmonds Fire Department could cost 6M less.
Restructuring would heed to go on to get there, but we should have that type of conversation as a community.
Two weeks ago, another nearby city annexed into a city with other communities.. this model works for communities all over our region, so people shouldn’t be suspicious… just weeks ago nearby cities voted into RFA.
Starting a fire department here isn’t financial feasible.
You can’t just put duct tape and water and then get the fire department
An Edmonds fire department isn’t a castle in the air AT ALL. The city should be doing what I’m currently doing, an analysis on the Vancouver fire department.
This was the guy I defended earlier. HE IS STUDYING NEARBY CITY SOLUTIONS AND FINDING WAYS WE CAN SPEND LESS… AND THE CITY ISN’T DOIGN THIS WORK!!! OMG WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON, ON A MICRO LEVEL, WITH OUR WORLD!??!???!?!? It’s so good I came to this hahaha. What a wake up call!
A city in California had a similar problem as here, but their county fire department kept raking up prices… 52k residents run it for 10M a year. Far less expensive than here.
We want a pause, we want to know the details. What do you guys know that we dont’ know? Where is the analysis that shows it’s impossible?
Why is 21M required per resident? Where is that info? I’d love to know.
“A pause would cost an inordinate mount of money.”the city responds.
Rebuilding a fire department is an extremely expensive option, which is why many mayors and leaders said we can’t afford it
Nearby cities are all served by the same firefighters and paramedics, but they went from contract to flat costs. The same costs of 2025 are the same as 2026, but now they’re not paying contract prices, now they’re paying assessed value in 2026. They’re brilliant, managed the transition, then when they felt ready to have the vote, they had it.
For Shoreline (as an example) why didn’t you let us know that there is no cost difference.
We all come to this from a place of principal disagreement. We are in a place where costs are going to continue to go up.
The attorney said they’ve been talking this to death, since before December, so they want it to be over soon. Everyone laughs… maybe cause December wasn’t THAT long ago? Idk - I dont get the joke.
Resident is wondering if annexation is irreversible.
Let’s save five years down the road, can we rethink this?
Yes! It is rethinkable.
everyone in the audience yells out - but what what cost?? what cost? How much? For what?
We’ve addressed this often at other public forums.
But how easily is it reversible? Everyone asks that muttering.
Then someone rebuttals - yes, how we get the rolling stop back has many nuances.
Pausing right now vs. saying yes and then having to revisit later with more costs.
Closing Statements:
Annexing seems like a no brainer, it’s been studied, it’s part of the long process. If we talk about direct representation, we will have that under the RFA and w’ell have spots for edmonds commissioners I believe.. there will be representation, districts.
Lol, I realize upon reflection than when someone says “it’s obvious, it’s a no brainer, it’s been studied” - like it’s sorta brushed off as, “it’s the smartest, come on already”… it may not be the smartest, why are we rushing? It felt like that was a big takeaway by the audience here. Like, slow your roll everyone. Slow your roll.
You have had direct representation, you selected your city council and your mayor, numerous people support this, including the mayor.
“These people believe that annexation is the right thing, so should you.”
Is that true? Or can voters say when they’re astray?
There was discussion about how nearby cities have annexed and we’re the last to do it.
“Yes, what he said was true, the vote in January had just as much of a “con” presence in those cities who voted “pro” in the end, as here… although the vote was in favor, it was not a landslide by any means. There was opposition and the population felt there were other options and they should have exercised them.”
THE GOAL OF THIS EVENT:
We can all agree: there’s never enough time to get everything in - and - this is a contentious issue in the community.
So glad to see that civil discourse was exercised for the most part. This is not an end-all.
Let’s encourage outreach to those that are stakeholders. Continue to reach out to one another.
Support these community conversations, listening sessions for people to get information directly from those looking to make those decisions.
Take that information and do with it what you will.
This video will be on the organization’s website by the end of today, so thanks to everyone watching.
Let’s keep having these conversations and remember we are all still neighbors and going to see each other in and around the city. So, make sure we are community and neighbors beyond anything else.
Thanks to everyone for submitting questions and everyone who was here. Look forward to more of these conversations in the near future.
So this event host I may have met/seen at an event before. I’m pretty sure I know who she is and her charity leads events, jsut like this, with the intention to get more discussions going. She’ll keep the police accountable, host things like this. I love it… even if it’s not her, but I think it is. I’ll double check and then later go back and link it here, if so. Cause I may have talked about her in another blog.
(I want to go through and make my website way more connected, link more to each other and reference it way better… but… have you seen how many events I”ve been to this week and keep going to?? We’ll double cross the t’s and double dot the i’s in a bit… for now, you know. Keeping up as much as possible… we’ll get there!)
Overall Event Review - Further Evaluations:
- Venue (5/5) -
This venue was a church. The last time I was in a church was another event, like a winter dancing and body-awareness event haha. So, I’m liking the random occurrence of a church as a really great venue. In this case, it was a great venue. It is super beautiful, kinda the perfect size for this event, cute windows, nice warm feel… and then a good setup for a community discussion. It was rectangular shaped, but a thin rectangle… so all the people are on the sides… at one end is the audio guy with the mic for questions… then looking straight across from that is the whole table of speakers/represenatives. It’s very good for this. People were cheering and chanting and agreeing, laughing, gasping, etc. It was engaging with this setup. I also liked how engaging it was…
-Food (0/5) -
With this rating, you can guess why. In the industry, they say, “know your audience is intelligent” or “don’t underrate your audience’s intelligence” or whatever… so, just fill in the blanks with that one (but, what can you expect!? it’s like a community debate, and free… so, duh. 0/5 = fine in this case)
-Speaker Content (5/5) -
I’d even rate it higher!! I loved this in the way I love reality tv. It was prepared presentations, raw questions/commentary, and emotions overcrowding everything (haha - I’ve taken a bit break from Ai lately, just writing freestyle, but that last sentence was so Ai-influenced. I’ve still got the lingering effects hahaha). But yeah, everyone had great things to say… like, everyone!! The politicians, the locals, the firemen, the fire chiefs, the lawyer, the townspeople who’ve lived her decades, myself! ;). I mean, it was a riot! And it was full of passion, truth, and really a goal to resolve for the best. I loved it.
-Networking (3.5/5) -
I mean, there were no reasons to network here necessarily (yes and no) thought the “no” vote of this vote had a website where you can learn more. I’m not going to put it for now, but maybe in the future - or above - I will eventually. But, I had a number of people come up to me after and introduce themselves to me and say thanks for speaking up. So, it’s a community event and I decided to speak up with an opinion, so, of course there’s a chance peopel will talk to you. So, it was like, a friendly enough environment that a number of people gave me shoutouts and said something… but also I could keep to myself a lot too. :).
-Likeliness to Return (5/5) -
It’s like, gimme a break! Do I really wanna start going to community events, these local voting/our choices matter events, and speak up??? Uhhh… No comment hahahahah. Calm down and let’s just see. I don’t wanna over commit. But, it was extremely worthwhile of my time, I was the youngest person there (minus a firefighter or two) by at least 20 years… I think we need the “youth” (yeah! me! okay? live a little and be young at heart) at more of this stuff. I was proud to represent the people, economical reasoning, and be a little lively/youthful in spunk and spite with my words :)
