Enumclaw Could Pay Plenty for Schools in Black Diamond

Community activist Cindy Proctor thinks Enumclaw residents would have to pay too much for schools in the Black Diamond area.

Enumclaw School District Superintendent Mike Nelson thinks the best deal possible has been negotiated, when compared with growth in other communities, such as Dupont and Snoqualmie.

And Black Diamond City Councilman Craig Goodwin is somewhere in the middle. He thinks Nelson negotiated the best deal he could, but that Enumclaw-area voters are not going to pass bonds for construction of schools that will benefit mainly Black Diamond.

All of their views will come to a head Monday, July 11, at a Development Agreement Hearing in Black Diamond at Sawyer Woods Elementary School, 31135 228th Ave. S.E. Hearings will continue all week, and a full-day session also is planned for Saturday, July 16.

At issue is growth in Black Diamond and how it will effect Enumclaw’s School District. Two Major Planned Developments on 1,500 acres are slated for Black Diamond that would bring more than 6,000 housing units over 20 years. Those new residents will need schools, the estimate is six or seven, at a cost of between $250 million and $300 million. But since no one lives in the area yet, just getting the schools started takes money. And the large majority of people in that taxing district live in Enumclaw now.

Kirkland-based YarrowBay Holdings is planning the developments, but there has been one delay after another because many residents think the projects are too big for the infrastructure.

Proctor said she is upset that Enumclaw schools already have spent $304,000 in forced legal action related to negotiations with YarrowBay, without a public hearing.

“Back room negotiations have left the public out of the process,” she says in an email. “If the taxpayers in Enumclaw get notified, have a public hearing and no one shows up then it’s an issue of apathy...but I am a proponent of open and transparent government and school boards and a public process.

“How can $304K of general funds be used for this while we keep slashing school budgets? The developer at a minimum should at least have to pay for the forced legal actions of the Enumclaw School District. Why should we subsidize development in Black Diamond?”

The Enumclaw School District has acknowledged that it needed to accept a lower mitigation fee/credit to ensure that the developer could build out faster to get more voters in Black Diamond who would be favorable to approving the bonds, thus helping pay for them, too. 

“Bottom line is this agreement is horrible, and it commits the taxpayers and the ESD to an irrevocable 20-year agreement,” Proctor said. 

Black Diamond signed a comprehensive school mitigation agreement between the city, the Enumclaw School District, and the developer. YarrowBay would provide land for the schools in exchange for mitigation fee credits, but taxpayers will have to approve bonds to pay for construction.

“I don’t see how voters are going to be there for it,” Goodwin said. “Are people going to pass it? No. A developer without schools; it’s hard to sell homes.”

Goowin said growth should pay for growth; that existing taxpayers should not have to pay for new development; and that reasonable impact fees should be paid by the developer.

Enumclaw schoosl have been in negotiations with the developer for three years, and Nelson argues that once people move into the new homes the tax burden will spread out.

“It will go up at first, then go down,” Nelson said.

Details on the Development Agreement Hearings will be posted at www.ci.blackdiamond.wa.us/Depts/CommDev/DA.html. Porter’s citizens group is at schoolaccountability206@hotmail.com.

If you can’t make one of the meetings you can write or email until 5 p.m. Friday, July 15, to: spilcheratci.blackdiamond.wa.us or Steve Pilcher Community Development 24301 Roberts Drive P.O. Box 599 Black Diamond, WA 98010.