Want to know whether a City of Fairwood could make a go of it financially? A good place to start is Maple Valley.

Maple Valley shares similarities to Fairwood that made it a logical model for the consultants preparing a Fairwood incorporation study, a key document that will help determine whether Fairwood becomes a city.

Maple Valley is a relatively young city, opening its doors in 1997. It’s a bedroom community, like Fairwood, and its population is similar, about 20,000 people, to Fairwood’s roughly 25,000. And, of course, it’s right next door.

Maple Valley and Fairwood are not a perfect match and the consultants will factor in those differences. Maple Valley has state highways, for example, that the state maintains. Maple Valley also has parks, including Lake Wildernes, the city’s park gem.

Maple Valley has a larger commercial area and there are differences in such important tax-generating factors as property prices.

The consultants, Redmond-based Henderson, Young and Co., are putting the finishing touches on what essentially is a financial feasibility study of the proposed

city, commissioned by the Washington state Boundary Review Board for King County.

The public can comment on the study at two meetings, including the first on Feb. 9, and then formally at a public hearing before the Boundary Review Board. The board then will recommend approval or denial of the incorporation, perhaps in April.

The final decision whether to incorporate rests with the registered voters of the proposed City of Fairwood. If that vote fails, waiting in the wings are two proposals to annex all or part of Fairwood to Renton.

The incorporation proposal is known formally as the Fairwood Municipal Initiative.

Fairwood already has gone through the cityhood process. In 2006, a similar incorporation study was released – although using a different method. In that election, cityhood was rejected 52 percent to 48 percent.

But the tug-of-war for the votes of Fairwood residents is on again between supporters of cityhood and of annexation. All seem to want to make sure voters have enough information to make an informed decision.

The incorporation study will answer a key question: Can the city pay its bills? Answering that is not as simple as it sounds, because of a number of variables, including whether residents want at least the same level of services at the same cost (taxes) they are paying today.

Because the analysis isn’t done, Randy Young, president of Henderson, Young and Co., is keeping mum for now about what the team is finding.

“We’re trying to figure out whether the Fairwood area would have a balanced budget as a city if it were to incorporate,” Young said. If not, the question is whether the city would have extra money or would it have a shortfall, he said.

His company is using what’s known as a “comparable city method” for the analysis, rather than the method used by the previous consultants, Berk and Associates, which, he said, basically built a budget from scratch.

Young suggested that residents not try to compare the two studies, which he said is like comparing an apple to an aircraft carrier.

The Berk study is not “entirely obsolete,” he said. The outcomes may turn out to be dramatically different or more or less the same, he said. In either case, the results will give residents more viewpoints on the same issue, he said.

Young’s team is using Maple Valley’s budgets from 1997 through the proposed 2008 budget. The numbers will provide what Young calls the “elusive average,” or in an average year would Fairwood have more than enough money or not enough money, he said.

That method removes from the equation the cyclical nature of the local and national economies, Young said, although the consultants are “painfully aware” of the tough times.

So how has Maple Valley fared since it incorporated as a city 12 years ago?

Just fine, thank you, especially in the early years, according to long-time Mayor Laure Iddings.

Maple Valley had to answer Fairwood’s question: Could the city provide the same level of services at the same tax level or less. The answer was yes, Iddings said.

Helping in those early years were low interest rates and strong housing starts, she said. And, she said, the city has been “financially conservative.”

In fact, Maple Valley was able to bank about $15 million in taxes in the first 10 years. But then the city spent millions on capital projects to accommodate that growth, she said. And, it had to set priorities.

Now, more than a decade later, would Iddings want to start a new city? No, she said, mostly because the economic conditions have changed so much since 1997.

However…

“As long as the residents of Fairwood are realistic about their expectations, there is nothing better that self-determination,” she said.

Cityhood is “risky and scary,” Iddings said, and “it didn’t come without its challenges.”

Fairwood

community meeting

Consultants with Henderson, Young and Co. will present a draft of the incorporation study for a proposed City of Fairwood from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Feb. 9 at the cafeteria at Northwood Middle School, 17007 S.E. 184th St., Fairwood. The meeting will include small-group and large-group discussions about the study findings of the study and a chance to comment at a microphone. Those comments could factor into the final version of the study. A second public meeting, as-yet unscheduled, is planned for mid-March to present the revised study to the public. Then, the Boundary Review Board will hold a formal public hearing, expected sometime in April, before making its recommendation on the incorporation proposal.