Montesano leaders are hoping to hear from some of its neighbors next month on whether they would like to be annexed into the city.

The city believes it is providing services, specifically emergency medical services, to county residents — paid for by Montesano taxpayers — and is not being properly compensated. The city is taking a poll of sorts to see if county residents are interested in joining the city.

Grays Harbor News Group received a letter from the city dated Jan. 9 asking county residents north and south West Simpson Avenue, and around Clear View Drive, Valley View Lane, Sylvia Creek and Sylvia Ridge Lane for their input on the annexation.

“They have until February 15th to respond,” City Clerk Arnel Blancas said in an email. “At that point, we’ll review the results and determine how to proceed.”

Residents who do not respond will be (considered) to be against the proposal, Blancas said.

“(If) they do not respond we do not count them towards our 60% approval requirement. It’s essentially a no’ vote,” Blancas wrote.

But the city believes it is entitled to compensation for the EMS coverage.

“What was discovered was (the county residents) had been getting those services, but no one’s paying for them,” Montesano Mayor Vini Samuel said. “Right now, they are paying that money, but they’re paying it to Fire District 2. They’re not paying it to the city. So the citizens of Montesano are subsidizing these pockets (outside the city limits) where we’re covering services. And we can’t legally do that. We can’t gift that.”

Fire District 2 Chief Leonard Johnson says the fire district has not received official notice of an annexation from the city but that they are aware of the effort and will continue to serve the residents of both the county and the city as needed.

“We don’t believe there is a gifting issue, because we do reciprocate back and forth all the time,” Johnson said. “In fact, if there’s a fire in the city or an EMS call and they call us either on the automatic assignment or a mutual aid request, we don’t even hesitate. … We just send our on-duty crews whenever that occurs. We don’t want to see anybody in the community go without protection.”

The fire district asked the city to rework their agreement to address its concerns.

“We did make an attempt to bring resolution by updating the automatic mutual aid program,” Johnson said. But that proposal was rejected.

“As of today, in order to resolve that response issue, we have changed our response plan to the areas that are affected by the mayor’s letter,” Johnson added this week. “We are responding in those areas on, what we would call a ‘first due basis,’ rather than Montesano responding in. And we still have some automatic aid set up for fires, and we will call them as needed for medical aid.”

Samuel believes that some sort of annexation will occur.

“The question is which part of the map will it enclose,” she said. “If we find there’s a whole section that says we don’t want to be part of the annexation, or it doesn’t have sufficient value … then we’ll rethink” how the lines are drawn.

One communication from the city sent out in the middle of December states that as of Saturday (Feb 1), Montesano would be “terminating any voluntary coverage (except through mutual aid agreements) outside the Montesano city limits.”

When asked about that, Blancas, the city clerk, said, “We are working with Fire District 2 on that. We are trying to make it a smooth transition. I wouldn’t say we have a hard date on that right now.”

At least one resident is upset with the proposal. Former City Council woman Marisa Salzer, who lives in the West Simpson area, believes the annexation would cost her more money, not less as the city has claimed in letters to residents.

“We went around and talked to neighbors and pretty much everybody was opposed to the annexation … ,” she said. “We do pay for the services. We pay for our water service. We also pay for our fire service and police service. There’s no benefit to most of us in the neighborhood for being incorporated into the city.”