February 2006 Meeting Summary

Area Council monthly meeting highlights

      By Peter Rimbos, Corresponding Secretary

 The Greater Maple Valley Area Council represents all unincorporated area residents living in the Tahoma School District. It serves as an advisory body to the King County Council. On Monday, February 6, the Area Council, at its regular monthly meeting discussed the following topics: (1) King County Comprehensive Plan Updates and (2) Meeting Between Rural Area Council Chairs & Executive Sims.

Public Comment

An Open Comment period precedes regular Area Council agenda topics allowing citizens to speak. King County Councilman Reagan Dunn requested a few minutes to address the Area Council. Mr. Dunn, recently elected to the newly formed 9^th district, listed his priorities for what comprises most of southeast King County: (1) Transportation--focusing on SR-169 (Maple Valley Hwy); (2) Met-amphetamines; (3) Land-Use Reform; and (4) Government Reform. Mr. Dunn indicated that with a smaller Council (9 instead of 13 members) committees are being reorganized. He will serve as Policy Chair of Rural & Unincorporated Affairs on the newly integrated Growth Management & Natural Resources committee (formed by combining the Growth Management & Unincorporated Areas committee and the Natural Resources & Parks committee—both very important to the 9^th district).

Comprehensive Plan Update

The King County Comprehensive Plan, the guiding policy document for all land-use and development regulations in unincorporated King County, is updated each year. Every fourth year major revisions are proposed and considered for adoption. This was last done in 2004 and will again be done in 2008. An Area Council committee studied the proposed 2006 update and found only minor changes. However, due to the relatively major changes proposed every fourth year and due to our area citizen surveys that consistently indicate people want minimal growth and little or no changes in the Urban Growth Boundary, the Area Council decided to form a Land-Use committee.

In requesting the formation of this committee, Chairman Bonewits cited an example of a requested UGB move near Covington. The request--turned down by the County for this year's update, but alive for the 2008 update--is an upzone of property from rural to commercial to facilitate construction of a couple of big-box developments. The proposal would impact a fairly large rural area just north of SR 18 and east of Wax Road / 180th adjacent to and in the vicinity of the SR 18 - 256th Street interchange.

Rural Area Council Chairs Meeting with Executive Sims

To foster improved representation of Unincorporated Areas with King County a meeting between the four rural Area Council chairs (Greater Maple Valley, Four Creeks, Upper Bear Creek, and Vashon Island) and Executive Sims was held last month. The purpose of this and future meetings is to discuss significant Rural Area issues before they become contentious issues or problems. At the meeting Chairman Bonewits shared our citizen advisory survey results (see Jan. 31 Voice article) and what citizens tell us is important to them. Chairman Bonewits also specifically recommended that a position of Director of Rural Affairs be created in the Executive office with the responsibility of attending rural Area Council meetings and serving as the rural area day-to-day interface with policy planners and affected department heads on all rural issues.”