Mayor, Auburn maintain optimism in face of tough challenges

Published 4:55 pm Wednesday, January 26, 2011

It’s no secret that in this economy, things are tough all over.

Even as more people move to Auburn, revenue lost to state mandates or initiatives has forced the City Council to make serious spending cuts.

But citing a recent uptick in sales tax receipts, a modest increase in new home building permits, new business licenses issued and the opening of new businesses, Mayor Pete Lewis in his recent State of the City Address to the Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce Luncheon at Emerald Downs struck a hopeful note.

“I must tell you I have more reason for optimism today than at any time since I took office,” Lewis said.

He praised the City Council for its vision, stressed what partnerships have accomplished within the city and between it and other governments, waxed sentimental about the City and called on residents to work together to take care of their own in a time of great need and little money.

Mostly, he talked about what the City has accomplished and what’s left to do.

He talked about the need to provide for the recent wave of immigrants and to preserve the best of old Auburn, that is, the need to keep moving ahead while preserving what makes Auburn what it is.

As the state and the counties address their own budget problems, he said, both are cutting human services, at a time when those services are needed most. Cities like Auburn, he said, have no one left to pass the buck to.

“No choice has been given to us,” Lewis said. “These are our own people. We might not have the funds necessary, but we do have the heart of the community. Working with all sectors of our community, business, faith, citizens from all sectors as well as the city, we must find new ways to help those most in need. The Auburn Food Bank lines grow longer, Auburn Youth Resources, the Sexual Assault Resource Center and so many more are stretched to their limits.”

The Auburn City Council dedicates 1 percent of the previous year’s general fund expenditures to human services, about $486,000 last year, an increasing rarity among cities. There are more than 1,000 requests of great need every year, and fewer than 30 agencies that receive funding from the City using up all those funds.

“… I call on all of our agencies to come together, the non-profits, the faith community, service clubs, schools and business, and together we must take care of our people. We are a community that takes care of our own, and I ask all who hear or read this message to keep hope in their hearts to come forward to help,” Lewis said.

He said over time the City must increase business sales tax and property tax income, not by adding more taxes but by bringing in the desired businesses where the City wants them to decrease the tax burden on residents.

“We need jobs for our people, and not just the minimum-wage jobs but businesses with good family wage jobs for us and for our children and their children, so that they will want to stay and be a part of this wonderful community of ours,” Lewis said.

Downtown projects ongoing

Lewis said the City Council has invested a great deal of time and effort to bring back the downtown through catalyst projects. Two full blocks are now done, and the next steps are under way. This year the City will complete the city plaza, first conceived by Council members more than five years ago, and then it will move to the extended plaza across the street where Marvel Grocery once stood.

With the extended plaza completed, Division Street from Main Street south to Third will be transformed to the new Promenade with the aid of a $3 million grant from the Federal Economic Development Agency and $7 million from State Tax Increment financing.

The Promenade, with 20-foot wide sidewalks, places to talk, sit and relax, also will contain state-of-the art stormwater retention and detention facilities, permeable concrete applications and all of the infrastructure necessary to a 21st-century downtown community of high-density residential next to the Transit Center, downtown grocery and hospital coupled with retail development that will connect, not separate old Main Street to the new development.

Last year Lewis brought together citizens and businesses in an Urban Core Task Force to look at what the boundaries of Auburn’s downtown might be 30 or 40 years from now. The results of their work havebeen sent to Council as part of planning for the future.

He urged the Chamber to create a retail council, a manufacturing council and said the City also must support the Auburn Downtown Association.

Lewis said the City sorely needs the second transit garage he claims it was promised in Sound Transit’s package of transit improvements, ST2, which voters passed by wide margin in 2008. He said the City will keep up the heat on the agency in 2011 to get one. Auburn citizens, he said, will have their say at Sound Transit’s Jan. 27 open house.

A link to rail

While the mayor applauded recent addition of a bus serving Lakeland Hils, he reminded the audience that it lacks any other transit service for Pierce County residents. He said the City is awaiting the approval of Amtrack Trains on the Stampede Pass rail line, which could include a self-propelled passenger car serving the citizens of Covington, Black Diamond and Encumclaw.

“The possibility of a self-propelled passenger rail car … from their cities to Auburn using the Stampede Pass line would allow them access to Sound Transit, Metro, Pierce Transit, and AMTRAK is the only practical solution,” Lewis said.

He said the impetus for red-light cameras was death and injuries. And while politicians may talk, he reminded his audience what their presence has meant at those intersections: “No one has died there, no one has died, since we put them in.”

He noted that the City has used the red light money above and beyond what it pays Red Flex Traffic Systems of Arizona 13 neighborhood traffic calming improvements including speed cushions, numerous new warning signs and school zone flashing beacons.

“We have great challenges in 2011. We ended 2010 with the possibility of a glimmer of hope on the horizon, but it will be years until we see solid effects of recovery here at home. As always we must work together to keep ourselves safe and out of harm’s way. It is the Auburn way, and we will succeed,” Lewis said.