The Seattle Times February 05, 2003

MARYSVILLE: MAPPING ROAD TO A BETTER CITY

By Peyton Whitely
Times Snohomish County bureau

MARYSVILLE — If citizens take steps to improve the city's image and quality of life, will anyone else care?

That's the crux of the problem that faced the 30 or so Marysville residents who met last week to talk about how best to address the challenges facing the city, as laid out in a consulting firm's 279-page report. The report by Gardner Johnson, a firm with offices in Seattle and Loomis, Calif., paints a dire picture of a city that has lacked in business and industrial growth, and is facing urban sprawl and a dying downtown.

The report concludes: "Snohomish County's business and industry growth has not just reached Marysville, but also seemed to skip over the city, particularly the northern core, and provided economic success for communities such as Arlington, Mount Vernon.

"... Ironically, Marysville has internally experienced its own form of 'urban sprawl' as State Avenue has become one continual linear retail/commercial strip several miles long."

The study says the city's downtown has been all but ignored. The population largely uses the city as a bedroom community, traveling to jobs and shopping in other areas, although the report identifies 939 businesses in its main commercial areas and 2,500 businesses overall.

"You're leaking hugely in terms of retail sales," Matthew Gardner, a principal in the consulting firm, said during last week's meeting at Fire Station 62.

"People live here. They just don't work here. People who were raised here are not sticking around unless they absolutely have to. They're going elsewhere."

City Planning Commissioner Becky Foster, who attended last week's meeting along with members of the City Council and the Marysville Economic Revitalization Committee, said she was eager to begin work on the report's recommendations.

"We're still at the same place we were 18 years ago," she said.

Other participants echoed Foster's feelings.

"People need to see something happen and get excited about their community, and right now they're not," one said.

But taking such steps is complicated by the community apathy identified through randomly selected community focus groups.

"One thing we noticed was a great feeling of apathy," Gardner said.

Part of the meeting centered on looking at cities that have faced similar challenges, such as Ossipee, N.H.; Oakland, Maine; and Albany, Ore.

In each city, a key to achieving success was establishing goals and sticking to them. That included setting deadlines and holding people accountable for meeting them.

"Creating a sense of place in Marysville is very, very important," Gardner said.

"You've got to set goals and stick to them."

The report lays out eight main steps that would have to be taken for Marysville to become the place it would like to be.

One crucial step would be to convert skeptics and naysayers into becoming advocates of the changes, Gardner said.

It probably would be necessary to divide the objectives into doable sections, he added, because the whole package is nearly overwhelming.

Another recommended "strategic direction" is enhancing the community image and identity. This would involve creation of a beautification and landscaping committee, starting a facade-improvement program, establishing a theme for each commercial area, improving design standards and code enforcement, and making improvements to State Avenue.

And though that alone would be a big chunk of work, there were several other recommendations: fostering community cooperation and leadership, expanding and diversifying the economic base, supporting recreation and tourism, improving transportation and infrastructure, improving the government and regulatory environment, and enhancing employment and housing opportunities.

One of the agenda items calls for establishing a plan of action, but in the end, even that proved overwhelming, as it became apparent that the group gathered at the fire station last week was too large for quick movement.

Instead, Greg Young, the city's economic-development coordinator, suggested an implementation committee be formed. Eight members — two each from the City Council, Planning Commission, revitalization committee and chamber of commerce — were named to that group.

"Unless we want this to die a slow death, we need structure," Young said.

It's expected the committee will return with an implementation plan in about a month, he said.

There was little question the people attending the meeting shared a sense of urgency in moving toward the goals laid out in the Gardner-Johnson report.

"We have to figure out how we're going to get to 'yes,' " said Mayor Dave Weiser, explaining that a strong community endorsement for the changes is a necessity.