Spanaway Residents Seek Incorporation, File Notice

SPANAWAY, WA - Is it time for Spanaway to become a proper Washington State city in its own right? A group of locals seem to think so, and they've filed the paperwork to make it happen.

Barbara "Boojee" Bowman on Feb. 19 officially filed a notice with the Pierce County Council indicating a desire to see Spanaway incorporated. According to Pierce County spokeswoman Erin Babbo, the next step in the process will be for the county's Boundary Review Board to meet and determine the total number of signatures required to push the initiative forward.

The Revised Code of Washington (RCW) requires signatures from 10 percent of registered voters within the boundaries of the proposed new city, Babbo explained.

Bowman's notice to council indicated the proposed city of Spanaway would have a population of roughly 24,000, so petitioners will likely need roughly 2,400 signatures — but the Boundary Review Board has not yet set a date for that meeting.

Bowman's notice also indicated her group's desire to see the city of Spanaway ran via a council-manager form of government, with a directly elected mayor.

However, the process is still in its infancy, Babbo said, pointing out that filing the petition is literally the first of between 15 and 20 steps required to become an incorporated city.

This is also not the first time Spanaway residents have sought an individual identity.

According to The News Tribune, a group of Spanaway activists made a similar effort about 17 years ago, but they were ultimately rejected by 79 percent of voters who did not want to be incorporated.

The 2002 proposal, however, was for a much larger boundary than the 2019 proposal, The News Tribune said, showing the first attempt also included the unincorporated area of Parkland.

Because neither Spanaway nor Parkland residents wanted to absorb the other's city name, the city of Gateway was proposed as a compromise. In the end, it too reportedly failed to excite the electorate.

Incidentally, other nearby areas debating incorporation at the same time further complicated the city boundary issue, leading to more combative arguments about how taxes and development would be implemented.

The boundary proposed in Bowman's latest attempt shows the northern city limit roughly following Military Road South, west from Perimeter Road to roughly 14th/15th Avenue East. The southern city limit sits around 208th Street South, bordered on the west by SR-507 South and on the east by 14th Avenue East.

All in all, the shape of the proposed city sort of resembles a 'q', based on the map produced by the Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer in January:

Bowman, the president of the Spanaway Historical Society, in her address to the Pierce County Council Feb. 19 said in part, "My job is to save history of the prairie of Spanaway and surrounding areas," adding, "It has become a struggle with the planning in our area and losing our sense of being.

"More recently, citizens of Spanaway have been involved in years of community planning under the Growth Management Act. In spite of their toil and describing the lifestyle of the community, most of their community planning has been removed and our sense of history is being lost.

"Spanaway is now part of a grand scheme to create urban level density in places that only 20 years ago were large pastures of horses and cows. Instead of placing urban areas in the already incorporated cities, Pierce County has allowed endless development over our seasonal streams and pastures. Trees have been replaced with apartments and townhomes.

"We do not like the direction Pierce County has driven our community and the time has come to take our course away from Pierce County and guide our OWN destiny."

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