If you’re wondering why last week’s paper was so pleasant to read, it’s probably because my picture wasn’t in it.

Instead of my weekly complaining, this space was filled by a column from the head of the YarrowBay development company, (Brian Ross, CEO) who attempted to explain their side of the new law creating Community Facilities District (CFD) taxing authorities. He seemed a little peeved about my previous week’s column, but I spent most of it picking on a city councilor, and not the CFD itself.

So, we’ll make this week’s column just about the CFD. You might want to load up on caffeine to stay awake through this, but I’ll try to keep it somewhat interesting.

At its root, the CFD is a new way for developers to finance public improvements such as sewers, parks, landscaping, libraries, schools and roads. Instead of the developer having to go out and borrow the money to pay for this stuff, they can create a CFD taxing authority that will issue bonds, which will slowly be paid back as the new developments sell. The CFD governing body will be made up of 3 local elected officials and 2 representatives from the developer.

Now, the only people they can tax will be the people who buy property inside the new development, so dampen those torches and put down the pitchforks. There will be plenty of angry mob opportunities later on in this column.

This isn’t limited to just developers, but these are likely to be the only people using this law. If you wanted to finance and build a replica of the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse in your backyard and make it a “community facility”, you can bypass the skeptical looks from your banker and try to form a CFD yourself. My backyard isn’t big enough, but if yours is, I’m willing to help.

But the main fight over these new taxing districts is about who gets to control the money to build these public improvements, and how much money will be collected.

This used to be entirely up to local elected officials to determine the impact, and in Maple Valley that is your seven elected councilors. Now, we’re reducing the number of decision makers to five, and letting the developer have two of those seats. The developer only needs to convince one of the three local officials to have a majority. Do you think it’s just a coincidence that YarrowBay has recently requested one-on-one meetings with each of the Maple Valley city councilors?

If a CFD is formed for the Donut Hole in Maple Valley, the next election becomes vitally important. Expect to see a lot of money pour in for new, developer-friendly candidates. Why? If one of the councilors is on the CFD board, and he or she loses in the election, the winner of the election takes that person’s seat on the CFD. No exceptions.

Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not against this development. YarrowBay is committed to buying the Donut Hole and following through with a dense development to maximize their profits. I happen to like profits, as they keep me off of welfare.

I’m OK with their lobbying efforts too, since that is how our legislative system is set up. Businesses are supposed to propose laws to benefit their own economic interests; that just how capitalism works. If we don’t want to get snowed, we have to pay attention.

But my economic interests include not having to crawl down Kent-Kangeley Road at 10 mph in the morning commute because a developer wanted to save a half-percent on a $300,000 house. And that’s what bothers me about the new taxing district law. With just one councilor crossing over to the developer’s side, this new taxing district can hire their own staff to produce traffic studies friendly to their cause.

It’s already happened in Black Diamond, where the environmental review examiner went with a 10-year old regional traffic study of King County, rather than a current-year study of the actual local streets in question. Forget about the City Council coming to the rescue with an increase in the transportation impact fees; state law prevents them from duplicating assessments for the same public improvement.

In a few years though, we’ll have forgotten all about this brief battle. We’ll only be left with impressions of how crowded it is in our town, and we can tell our grandkids that back in the day, you only had to sit through one red-light cycle.

Ryan Ryals lives in Maple Valley and writes a weekly column about politics and life in the city.

Reach him at ryanryals@ymail.com.