What if City Annexes Part of White Center?

I don't know this issue well enough but apparently the City Council is, once again, considering annexing part of White Center to Seattle. 

What reader asks is a compelling question: are there schools in that area and would that mean they would become part of SPS?

From the White Center Blog:

The Seattle City Council wants to ask the people of White Center and north Boulevard Park to vote on whether they want to be a part of Seattle.

Annexation of the North Highline Unincorporated Area may be an anathema to many in the area, whose residents overwhelmingly rejected the annexation in 2012, an election that many believe cost the jobs of some members of the former Burien City Council and its then city manager.

But, on Monday (Dec. 15) the Seattle City Council will reconsider the annexation proposal put on the shelf during the recession. Council President Tim Burgess and Councilmembers Sally Bagshaw and Sally Clark moved it to the regular Monday afternoon Seattle Council session.

One issue

A state law that provides a 0.1 percent sales tax credit to help pay for the annexation of an unincorporated area expires on Jan. 1, 2015.

The Seattle Council needed to start the process now while the law is in effect, thus keeping the tax credit alive. After Jan. 1, the tax credit is gone, so an action now means the annexation was started while the tax credit was legal.

Still, few believe the amount would cover the cost of taking the area into the city.

Seattle would pay for the election, if annexed. 

Another issue


Residents of the remaining unincorporated area will be asked to vote “for the annexation of the North Highline Annexation Area.”

Comments

Anonymous said…
Why would we want WhiteCenter? What about Shoreline or better yet, how about north of 105th becomes part of shoreline? It seems Seattle administrators only care about south of 85th. I believe Shoreline would clean-up the trash from 105th to 145th unlike Seattle that's letting the area become over run by questionable characters and seedy businesses.

Ted Bear
Anonymous said…
Ted Bear:

Seattle voters have no say if it goes to the ballot. Only residents of the annexation area get to vote. If you don't want Seattle to annex White Center (and you shouldn't -- Seattle can't even provide services for its present neighborhoods), then call your City Council members and tell them so.

As for the question Melissa raised, we went through this before. The answer then was that there would be no change. The schools that were in the Highline District would remain part of the Highline District.

My best guess is that the voters would reject Seattle just as they rejected Burien. But Seattle City Council members need to be told no, and hell no, to this idea.

-- Ivan Weiss
Watching said…
The Gates grant mandated that SPS work with Highline and White Center to develop prek program. Coincidence?

The city has also ear marked Family and Education dollars for preschool. White Center would be prime propoperty for a charter school, too.

The sponsors of this initiative include Burgess, Clark and Bagshaw.

The city wants property, and, oh my, the developers would love Burgess.

It is also interesting to note that both Burgess and Clark have decided to run at-large, which is much more expensive than running in a district.
Anonymous said…
Ted Bear - 85th on northward used to be Shoreline. Shoreline School District built Broadview-Thomson, Jane Addams, and Wilson-Pacific. Then Seattle city limits pushed northward and Seattle Public Schools took over those buildings. So they've already had their bite out of Shoreline. I don't think the existing Shoreline residents nor the City of Shoreline have any desire to become a part of Seattle.

CT
Anonymous said…
1954, but I cant find any data on the deatls. I did find this:

The council will go over a preliminary report that looks into whether Shoreline should annex the street into the city. According to the report, Seattle, which owns the eastbound lanes and sidewalks of 145thm and King County, which owns the westbound lanes and sidewalks, are both very interested in turning over the street to Shoreline.

I say why stop at the south side of 145th go all the way to 105th I will gladly pay the higher property taxes to be out of Seattle goofy grip.

Ted Bear
Anonymous said…
Found it..

Woodrow Wilson Junior High School

The Shoreline School District No. 412 sponsored an essay contest in fall 1947 to name two new junior high schools. Students in grades 6-8 were given a list of American Nobel Prize winners. The winning entry chosen for the school to go in north of Green Lake was Woodrow Wilson Junior High School, honoring Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States. Darlene Taylor, a pupil at Lake City School, submitted the winning entry. The other school named in this contest was Jane Addams Junior High School.

While Wilson was originally planned to be a junior high school, in its first year it operated as an intermediate school, with 750 students in grades 5-7.

The Shoreline district had bond money earmarked to complete the school. When it was annexed into the City of Seattle, the grade configuration was changed to grades 7-9. The Seattle School District completed the school with two additions, which opened in fall 1957 (gymnasiums plus metal, wood, and craft shops) and spring 1959 (13 classrooms in a music and science building, plus lunchroom). Situated on nearly 17 acres, Wilson has one of the largest school sites in the district. Enrollment peaked at 1,347 in 1959-60.

Wilson shifted to the middle school format in fall 1971, and was involved as part of the initial desegregation plan of reassigning middle school students between the north end and the central area of the city. In 1972, slightly over one hundred African-American students were bused to Wilson, while white students from Wilson were taken to Meany/Madrona Middle School.

As with many north end schools, enrollment declined in the 1970s. Enrollment was down to 996 in 1974-75. The student body included 146 special education students who were either neurologically impaired, had emotional, learning or language learning problems, or were mildly mentally handicapped. They were housed separately, with assignments to regular classes made on an individual basis.

I attended WP from fall of 72 until spring 76, yep got to experience the whole forced integration because we could not afford to send my to private school, but the kids bussed in had it worst.

Ted Bear
mirmac1 said…
It wasn't more than 4-5 years ago when my nearby neighbors in WC said hell no to Seattle AND Burien annexation. OF Course there are schools in WC (what? Do they think low-to-middle income class children are ignored?) I'm pleased my neighbors were discerning enough when it came to letting some outside municipality with its politics, taxing authority and land grabs to tell them what to do.

Under the recent Enfield regime they very well may be receptive to better alternatives. I would tell them to vote NO to any Murray grab.

Ask Blanford about his role in this. Despite his admittedly pedantic role in WC's renaissance (starting before Enfield), he talks like he's was part of the brain trust.

I have no worries. The immigrants and long time residents do not take kindly to bureaucrats and politicians.
Anonymous said…
If north of 85th went back to Shoreline, would we finally get sidewalks?

HP
Anonymous said…
Shoreline doesn't have any more sidewalks than north of 85th Seattle. Rumor has it that's why they do so much busing to schools. There was a city grant at one point to get sidewalks on the major streets near the schools, but I don't know how far they got. Probably no further than Seattle did when they said they'd do something about the lack of sidewalks on Greenwood Ave N. Lots of Adult Family Homes in Shoreline with disabled residents who struggle to get around without sidewalks, not unlike all the nursing homes along Greenwood as well as BT K-8. Bad situation in both cities.

CT
Cindi said…

Blanford worked for the Alliance for Education and was involved in the White Center Early Learning Initiative. We might be talking about Educare:

http://www.educareschools.org/locations/seattle.php

I've always thought Educare was part of the Gates Grant. White Center is an area of poverty and I'm glad these children have support.
Cinci said…
Educare is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Thrive By Five- essentially BMGF- and Puget Sound Educational District.

IMO this is the type of place a charter school might locate.
Anonymous said…
Parts of south Seattle are already not part of the SSD. Eg. There's several schools in Seattle city limits that are in the Renton School district. Eg. Bryn Mawr elementary. Not in SSD, but in Seattle. I assume that would happen with White Center as well.

Reader 48
Anonymous said…
Actually Bryn Mawr Elementary is not in the Seattle city limits. The Postal Service identifies the Bryn Mawr neighborhood with Seattle addresses but that is not the same thing.

Trivia Buff
Charlie Mas said…
The only public school I know of that's within the Seattle City Limits but not a Seattle Public School is Aviation High School.

There is no reason to assume that the annexation of White Center into the City of Seattle would necessitate the annexation of White Center into the Seattle School District.
Lynn said…
Aviation is actually in Tukwila. I'd say First Place is the only public school in the city that's not a part of SPS - until next fall at least.
Write as Rain said…
CT.
You better believe Shoreline does not want to be a part of Seattle. We incorporated in 1995 in part to avoid any ideas in that direction. Our potholes get fixed, our streets get plowed, and our budget is balanced.

Tina in Shoreline

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