Letter to Eric Anderson
City of Yelm
Community Development Department
105 Yelm Avenue West
P.O. Box 479
Yelm, WA 98597
May 30, 2006
Eric Anderson
Homeward Construction, LLC
2315 170th Street East
Tacoma, WA 98445
Dear Mr. Anderson:
This letter is to provide an update on the status of the petition for annexation of the area north of Coates Road into the City of Yelm. Mr. Hal Shepard has been working to obtain the
required number of signatures in order to submit the annexation petition to Thurston County for certification and then to the Thurston County Boundary Review Board for its consideration.
The Yelm City Council authorized the circulation of the annexation petition under both direct petition methods, summarized below, and satisfaction of either of the petition method requirements
would allow the City to proceed. I have reviewed the petitions gathered by Mr. Shepard to date and offer the following update.
Direct Petition Method. In order to qualify for annexation under this method, signatures that represent 60% of the property owners by assessed land value is required. Based on the
signatures obtained by Mr. Shepard to date, I calculate that only 53% of the property owners by land value have signed the petition. Mr. Shepard indicates that at least one additional
signature may be obtained when the property owner returns from out of the Country. However, this signature still does not achieve the required 60% (by my calculation, it would raise
the percentage to 57%).
Alternate Petition Method. This method requires the petition to be signed by over 50% of the property owners based on gross land area AND 50% of the registered voters in the proposed
annexation area. While I calculate that 53% of the property owners based on land area have signed the petition, it does not appear that the petition meets the registered voter requirement
as only 22% of the voters have signed the petition. If all the registered voters in the households that have signed the petition to date were to sign, it appears you are still short
of the minimum by about 6%.
If you are going to continue to pursue obtaining the required signatures for annexation, and need new petitions with the outstanding registered voters, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Grant Beck, Director
Department of Community Development