I attended the meeting of the Seattle City Council Special Committee on Annexation on July 5. Here are a few points/observations I took away from that meeting relevant to Burien's annexation considerations:

Seattle faces $4.6 million to $5.8 million in deficits from the proposed annexation. Their conversations reflect concerns about the cost. Obviously, for Burien to take on deficits at this level or bigger is a much larger concern than it is to Seattle because of the size of the city and its budget.

It is beyond belief that we continue to consider this fiscally disastrous strategy given the huge deficits involved in doing it.

The committee discussed the likelihood that there could be and would be agreements, cooperation, and contracts between the City of Seattle Fire Department and the fire departments currently serving North Highline if Seattle annexes all of North Highline. This was a surprise to me, as many Burien City Council members have repeatedly told me that Seattle fire resources never cooperate or enter into interlocal agreements.

Seattle's documents, formats, numbers and detail regarding annexation are much clearer than Burien's. It boggles the mind that after a year of this work, we still do not have documents and numbers that clearly and accurately explain what all this is going to cost.

I was overwhelmingly impressed with the breadth, depth, and experience of the City of Seattle government regarding their resources to bring to bear on annexation. They have done it before, they know how to do it, and they have the resources to make it work. We in Burien do not.

It is increasingly clear to me that annexation of any form by Burien of North Highline is a very, very bad idea, which is doomed to fail. If annexation moves ahead, it will be against the will of about 80 percent of Burien's registered voter population. It will mark and signal the end of the city of Burien as we know it today, and dash the hopes of many of us who thought this city was turning around.

It is time for the City Council to step back from the precipice and do the right thing. There should be no annexation by Burien of North Highline, at any level.

Horace Parker

Burien