PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend City Council discussed funding for aspects of the city’s three-year strategic plan, a conversation that included an analysis of a proposed annexation of the town into the East Jefferson Fire-Rescue district.
“I recommend a bit of a slowdown on the process here,” City Manager David Timmons told the council Monday evening.
No decisions were made at Monday’s workshop meeting, and Mayor Deborah Stinson was excused from the meeting due to illness.
Currently, the city contracts with the fire department, which serves unincorporated East Jefferson County, for fire services. Discussion of annexation has gone on for years.
Since the city adopted its three-year strategic plan in June 2016, Timmons has met with Gordon Pomeroy, East Jefferson Fire-Rescue chief, to discuss possibly having the city annexed into the fire district, according to the board minutes of an October 2016 meeting of the East Jefferson Fire-Rescue board.
Now that Pomeroy plans to retire, Timmons said, the city should slow down to allow a decision about funding and governance decisions with a new fire chief.
That could include restructuring two separate levies and potentially adding new board members to the East Jefferson Fire-Rescue District board of commissioners.
The decision must be approved by voters. Timmons said such a measure couldn’t be on a ballot until 2018.
“We’re just a little behind on the research here,” Timmons said.
Annexation into the fire district would provide the residents of Port Townsend more representation but could have some tax implications, Timmons has said. Fire district officials have said annexation would make it easier to provide services.
Joint task force
When the new fire chief is announced, Timmons advised creating a joint task force of city officials and officials from East Jefferson Fire-Rescue to look at how to handle levy rates for a possible annexation.
The commissioners also discussed how to provide long-term funding for the city library and parks and recreation. Both of those were identified in the three-year strategic plan.
According to the proposal from the city staff that was presented at Monday’s workshop, the commissioners will need to define what the desired levels of service from the library are, calculate the cost of that service and then figure out how to fund it.
According to Timmons, the current rate of the library’s annual budgeted expenses will exceed its annual revenue by 2020.
Parks and Recreation is having a similar funding problem. The parks department is currently funded by the city’s general fund, but, according to Timmons, to get the level of service and staffing back up to pre-recession levels, the city will need to find a new source of funding.
“The key to this, I think, is citizen input as well as staff input to kind of steer this process,” Timmons said.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Cydney McFarland can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 55052, or at cmcfarland@peninsuladailynews.com.
