and Ralph Nichols

Seattle will lobby the Legislature for tax breaks should it annex the North Highline unincorporated area.

Both Burien and Seattle have designated North Highline as a potential annexation area.

SeaTac recently targeted the Boulevard Park area as well.

The Seattle City Council considered on Dec. 17 scrapping Mayor Greg Nickels' plan to annex North Highline from White Center to Burien.

Their concern is that annexing the area would be a financial drain on the city, something even Nickels has conceded.

Instead, they voted to keep a possible annexation of North Highline alive and look to Olympia for help.

While smaller cities get a tax break from the state when they annex unincorporated urban areas, the Legislature has excluded Seattle.

For now, competing claims to North Highline remain alive.

Apparently two Washington cities have never before competed to annex the same area. About a year ago, Seattle and Burien each designated North Highline as a "potential annexation area."

And, observed Burien City Manager Mike Martin, the state Growth Management Act offers no process for resolving such turf battles.

King County will have to invent a procedure to determine which city would have precedence when it comes to annexation, Martin said.

Until then, Burien and Seattle are considering going to mediation with King County's alternative dispute resolution program.

SeaTac's claim to the Boulevard Park community must be resolved as well.

Meanwhile a committee of the Seattle City Council last week recommended transferring ownership of the White Center and Boulevard Park libraries from the King County Rural Library District to the Seattle Public Library "in the event of certain annexations in the unincorporated North Highline area."

"I want to be proactive," said Kenny Pittman, a senior policy analyst with the Seattle Office of Policy Management who's been steering the North Highline annexation proposal through city channels.

He feels the increasing warmth of the statutory deadline for an established city to annex North Highline. It has to be done by 2015 and no city has begun negotiating agreements for taking over water and sewer systems as well as fire and rescue services in North Highline.

Pittman hopes to start those discussions in the coming year.

The annexation of North Highline also is resonating in Olympia.

Lobbyists for Seattle will again try to convince state legislators to make that city eligible to collect a portion of state sales taxes collected within its limits. Being able to collect the tax would help fill the financial gap between how much tax revenue would be generated in North Highline versus the expense of providing city services to the newly annexed area.

Existing legislation limits the tax collection program to cities with fewer than 400,000 residents.

With Seattle the lone exception to the rule, city lobbyists will work on persuading legislators to let Seattle collect the same portion of state sales tax as other cities, Pittman said.

Another change being sought is an increase in how much of the state sales tax cities can take. Currently there's a $3 million limit. Lobbyists hope to expand the limit to $5.6 million, Pittman said.

Last year, similar amendments were approved by the Washington House of Representatives. However the legislation died in committee in the Senate.

The other active participant in North Highline's annexation is the city of Burien, which wants to settle an uncertainty with Seattle.

Whichever city tries to annex North Highline, it will be North Highline residents who will ultimately decide which city to join.

Tim St. Clair can be reached at 206-932-0300 or timstc@robinsonnews.com.