Electric City voters to decide on shrinking city boundaries

Electric City voters will be asked to decide on whether to de-annex a part of the city they agreed to add back in 2009.

The city council voted Aug. 8 that the city should place a measure on the General Election ballot in November to shed the city of some lands annexed to the east of SR-155 south of the causeway across Osborne Bay that belong to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation or the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

Other lands on the other side of the highway, including the area containing Sunbanks Lake Resort, would remain within the city boundary if the measure passed.

“This is the beginning of the process, to get the resolution done and then move forward with public meetings and voting,” said Mayor Diane Kohout.

The council unanimously passed Resolution 2023-08 to send the issue to the ballot.

An issue with state and federal authorities over enforcement of policies on target shooting, hunting, camping and more is the reported root of the problem. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation owns land along and near the bay, and USBR policy forbids target practice there, although it allows hunting.

Local police say they can’t enforce those policies.

That was one problem, but Kohout said the city had found a punch list of to-do items that were not accomplished after an agreement was reached in 2019 between the city, the USBR, DNR and state Fish and Wildlife, before she or any current council members had taken their offices.

The resulting status of the land and enforcement issues has left the city council reluctant to continue to provide services to the area, including law enforcement, so they voted to ask citizens to de-annex that portion of land.