Is North Highline Part of Seattle Or Burien?

Last week, we linked to a map showing that North Highline is one of King County's few unincorporated areas, yet to be assigned to a city jurisdiction. Then, we noted Highline because the area is in need of more policing, yet will be losing some valuable coverage as a result of the county budget cuts against which King County Sheriff Rahr is fighting. Now, we're mentioning it because the Times finally brought a two-week-old piece of news (whoops) to our attention: Seattle and Burien have reached a "Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU) on annexation boundaries for the neighborhood in the first steps towards incorporating the area into their respective cities.

The MOU can be read here [pdf], complete with signatures, and kudos to Burien's city website for making that document so easy to find. The same website has a handy color-coded map showing which areas are assigned to which city; Area X goes to Burien, Area Y goes to Seattle [pdf]. And here's the site--click on #8--where the City of Burien explains why it didn't even try to claim all of North Highline for annexation ("biting off more than we can chew”), though the high-energy conversation about the MOU can still be found on neighborhood blogs like White Center Now. The North Highline Unincorporated Area Council is another good resource; their next meeting is on January 8, 2009.

All unincorporated areas in this county are somewhere along the path towards annexation and will ultimately be incorporated into a city's boundaries, so this isn't exactly a surprise. Still, the MOU is just a declaration of intent and agreement that neither city will take action to annex the area not assigned to them in the next three years. That block sounds like it could be frustrating for North Highline residents with specific requests for their neighborhoods to be annexed to a city to which their area hasn't been assigned; Burien wouldn't be allowed to accept their petition, as commenter Jerry clarifies in a helpful White Center Now post. After January 1, 2012, the agreement times out, so Seattle has until then to act on annexing our portion of North Highline. Interestingly, two of the four proposed City of Seattle jail sites border the as-yet unincorporated area--we wonder if that has anything to do with the MOU (that's an honest inquiry, not snark, and we'll get back to you on what we find).