POULSBO — With more than half of the city’s Urban Growth Area already annexed, Associate Planner Edie Berghoff gave council members a brief reminder of how the annexation process works at the council’s May 3 meeting.

Two initial annexation meetings were on the council agenda and several people expressed their desire to not be incorporated into the city before the issues came up for council discussion.

“Council and staff have been working on a number of properties presenting requests for annexations,” Berghoff said as she began explaining the annexation process.

If an annexation presented by a property owner meets the requirement to circulate a petition, which is 10 percent of all the property owners in the proposed area, city staff brings it to the council for the initial meeting, Berghoff said.

“Council can accept it as drawn, reject it or council can determine the area to be annexed,” she said. “If the council says go ahead, the petition gets circulated.”

The next step in the process is meeting the 60 percent assessed value requirement for annexation, meaning that in order for an area to be annexed, property owners representing 60 percent of the total assessed value have to agree to be included in the annexation. A public hearing is then held before the council and the proposed annexation is reviewed by the state’s boundary review board.

“The last step is the adoption of an ordinance that has an effective date included,” Berghoff said. “The city and city staff are neither proponents nor opponents.”

One factor in annexations is islands, which are properties that are surrounded by 80 percent or more of the city limits, she said.

City Attorney Jim Haney reminded council about the wide discretion it retains in annexations under state law.

“If you decide not to authorize the petition, it’s your discretion,” Haney said. “The annexation is totally dead and state law allows you to do that.”

Councilwoman Connie Lord stepped in and requested that the council consider a moratorium on annexations until an analysis of the infrastructure costs and the city’s ability to provide services to its UGA is completed.

“I’m not opposed to annexation, but I am concerned we don’t have a lot of information at our disposal,” Lord said.

The information currently available doesn’t include the level of detail that is necessary to make those decisions, she said.

“I can’t support any petitions until I have an adequate analysis of the impacts of future annexations,” Lord said.

However, the mention of “moratorium” spurred Councilman Ed Stern to caution the council against taking such action.

“I agree with council member Lord, but the m-word is about the worst word we could utter as a city,” Stern said.

The council’s public works committee has made that analysis a priority and will address the issue promptly, but a moratorium is unnecessary, Stern said.