After years of using property tax money to pay for the Lake Stevens Library the City and Sno-Isle Libraries will soon be asking citizens to become annexed into the Sno-Isle Library system.

Currently, Lake Stevens is contracted with Sno-Isle Libraries to provide staffing, materials and library services to its citizens; however, the city owns the building the library is housed in. The cost of this contract fee for 2008 will be $515,000, which comes directly from the city budget.

“By annexing, it gets the city out of the business of library services and secures the library funds into the future,” Mary Kelly, Director or Community Relations and Marketing for Sno-Isle Libraries explains. By annexing into the Sno-Isle Libraries, city residents would be taxed directly for library services along with 15 other cities in the county including Granite Falls and Marysville and would show up on property tax forms as a separate line item entitled Sno-Isle Library. Lake Stevens is one of only four cities in the Snohomish and Island counties who is not annexed.

Go to Lake Stevens Journal article.