I appreciate and respect Lyle Dillon’s point of view regarding my legislation to end state Municipal Corporations, namely the Bellevue and Houghton Community Councils. I shared my views with Lyle in an email response to him earlier this week.

During the past 20 years I have made no secret of my opinion about the HCC, you need only ask the current chair of the HCC. I have believed for two decades that community councils have outlived the purpose for which they were originally formed.

The HCC was created 43 years ago to assure the merger of the towns of Kirkland and Houghton. Much debate surrounded that agreement, but that is history. I believe the merger of the two towns has been accomplished and the citizens of the Houghton neighborhood should enjoy the same relationship with the City of Kirkland as every other neighborhood, many of which have also “merged” with Kirkland.

Because the HCC has veto authority over the Kirkland City Council regarding land-use regulations, the city must provide the normal public review process for the city, then repeat the process for Houghton.

The taxpayers of the entire city are asked to pay the cost of the additional process, including the cost of attorneys for both sides when a dispute arises, as it did in 1999 over the Northwest College Master Plan. While the additional cost may be moderate in the grand scheme of things, it is nevertheless inherently unfair.

Since the original merger 43 years ago, the citizens of the state of Washington have instituted the Growth Management Act. The act directs growth into urban areas in order to preserve agricultural and rural lands. The GMA assumes that the land-use decisions needed to comply with the act should be made by city councils on behalf of cities, not on a neighborhood by neighborhood level.

That said, my fundamental opposition to the HCC is the fact that it simply violates the most basic tenet of democratic government, one person/one vote. Kirkland has gone out of its way to create a system of neighborhood associations which, over the years, have been effective voices for their neighborhoods. They have been effective helping to elect city council members, as they should be. Their ONE VOTE is for the Kirkland City Council.

Mr. Dillon exhorts me to work for the “benefit of everyone.” I believe that is exactly what I am doing by trying to assure that the 6000 people of Houghton have the same rights as the remaining 75,000 people of Kirkland, no more no less. Kirkland has always tried to be one city.

As always, I invite anyone to contact me to discuss this issue further, in more detail than letters to the editor allow.

Rep. Larry Springer