Why do cities incorporate? For local control

Cedar River Pipeline going through Renton, April 17, 1931 Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives

Seattle City leaders have had to work cooperatively with Renton leaders to build and maintain (for the past 92 years) a Seattle water pipeline through our city.  Renton’s leaders collaborate with Seattle while protecting Renton’s interests relative to land use, development, and safety.  While Seattle might prefer otherwise, Renton has insisted on our rights to drive and conduct business over their pipeline in downtown.  This is one small example of Renton asserting local control. 

As voters select their City Council Members, it’s helpful to remember why cities go through all the work and expense of incorporating.  It’s easy for an area to stay under county zoning, and rely on county services, county laws, and state laws to govern them.  If one googles “Why do cities incorporate,” they will find thousands of results telling them the answer is to have local control.

Since local control is why Renton incorporated 122 years ago,  it’s important that Renton elected officials put Renton’s local needs first.   That’s how advocacy works. When we elect City Council Members we’re not trying to replace our County, State, and Federal officials.   We have those representatives already, and we are paying many of them generous salaries for their representation. In some cases they represent the jurisdictions that inspired Renton to seek local control.

Renton Mayor Jesse Tanner, a former Federal executive and very effective two-term mayor who helped us create the Piazza, Henry Moses Aquatic Center, the skate park, the veterans park, the Landing, our modern City Hall and Police Station, and many other amenities,  used to remind me “Randy…cities don’t have friends, they have interests.”

I became adept at working cooperatively and professionally with neighboring cities during my 28 years on council, and I served on more regional committees representing our city than I can list here.  My colleagues on these regional committees had an amicable relationship with me, but they always knew I would put Renton first, the way I expected them to put the interests of their cities at the forefront.  That was my job, after all.  That’s what the taxpayers paid me to do.  That is local control.

So as you are choosing your council members in this and future elections, look at who is backing them, whether that support is tied to Renton, and whether you are confident they will put Renton ahead of other jurisdictions and other outside interests. Does the candidate give you confidence you are going to get the local representation and the local control you are paying for?  Will they fight against state laws that don’t work for Renton?  Will they insist on a fair share of county services and desirable facilities, like metro service and a Sound Transit light rail station?  Will they push-back on Renton having a disproportionate share of the county’s undesirable facilities, like sewage treatment, landfill, composting, and other facilities no one else wants? Renton Council Members need to be committed to Renton’s interests to give us the local control we’ve been paying for since incorporating in 1901.  If they don’t put Renton first,  we might as well just let ourselves be run by King County again.