10 years ago 1997
A Snohomish County Council decision drawing the line between Marysville and Arlington at 164th Street NE has answered some of the lingering questions over Smokey Points future. The details, however, are still up in the air. And despite an agreement between the two cities to keep negotiations out of court, a group of citizens are making no promises. The future of the pending annexation is one of the first issues that will be addressed. Arlington plans to ask the Superior Court to send the Smokey Point annexation back to the state Boundary Review Board because of the boundary changes following the boundary agreement approved by Snohomish County on Sept. 15. The BRB approved the annexation in December 1995. Appeals by the city of Marysville, the Marysville Fire District and a group of citizens have kept the matter in court since then. The citizen group that appealed the decision also plans to ask the court to declare the annexation moot, because of the county decision that prevents Arlington from completing the annexation approved by the BRB. The approved annexation area extends to 152nd Street NE, while the new urban growth boundary stops at 164th Street NE. If the current annexation is thrown out, property owners interested in continuing the quest to be annexed to Arlington will have to restart the petition process. That move must come from property owners, not the city. At the same time, that would open up the door for the group proposing to create a new city out of what is now Smokey Point.
25 years ago 1982
The Snohomish County PUD commissioners last week released a previously confidential survey on community attitudes which revealed that public confidence in the PUD fell to an all-time low last spring. During the winter hundreds of angry Snohomish County rate-payers had demonstrated against the utility to protest electric power rates that had shot up 220 percent in three years. The survey, which cost $24,000 to complete in April, has already raised the hackles of the PUD commissions opposition, Fair Use for Snohomish Energy, which charged the survey was politically motivated. An article in an Everett newspaper cited an unnamed source who claimed the report was released last week (almost five months after it was completed) because members of FUSE had seen the survey recently and were threatening to go to the media over the issue. The survey team interviewed 50 local opinion leaders, said C. Stanford Olsen, president of the PUD commission, and received comments describing the PUD commissioners and management as elitist, insincere and unaccountable. Some of the people interviewed, he said, alleged that their PUD was in cahoots with the Bonneville Power Administration. Olsen denied that the release of the survey was politically motivated, but was instead made public at the request of many of those interviewed. In a statement released over the weekend, a former FUSE officer and a current candidate for the PUD commission, Matt Dillon, charged the survey was wasteful and said it was outrageous to commission a study with public money for such a blatant political nature. Dillon called for an investigation to determine the appropriateness of managements use of public funds in this instance. He also said, There is something inherently unwholesome about using public money to commission a study about public opinion toward the PUD then hiding it from the public.

50 years ago 1957
The Board of Fire Commissioners of the newly organized Fire District No. 18, embracing a large area from Arlington north to the county line and from Highway 99 east to near Cicero, had its first meeting Sept. 23, at the Bryant Grange Hall. The commissioners, elected in July, are Bernard Peterson, Lewis Wright and George Espe. Mr. Peterson was elected chairman of the board. Robert Bibb, attorney for the district, was appointed to act as temporary secretary until a permanent one is selected. The secretary was instructed to request Lyle Goodrich, head of the State Fire School, to meet with the board as soon as possible to set up a district fire department. Mr. Bibb advised the board that the district would receive no tax money until 1959 and that any budget would have to be financed through donations or the sale of coupon warrants. He was requested to report to the board at its next regular meeting concerning the details of financing any coupon warrants.