The following is written by Sumner Mayor Dave Enslow:

Did you know that the City of Sumner is one of the largest cities in Washington? No, I have not lost my marbles. There are different ways to measure the size of a city.

The most common is population. Another, less common but perhaps more accurate method is the number of services a City offers. In this respect, Sumner is huge.

We provide drinking water, sewer systems, stormwater systems, police protection, animal control services, planning, permits, burial services at a cemetery, roads and sidewalks, parks and trails, street trees, public art, a senior center, a sports complex, municipal court services, in-house legal support, tourism marketing plus facilities to help house the library, the historical society and the Ehli Hill School for the Sumner School District. Not to mention a golf course that we’re still trying to unload, support for over 20 events held in town and our contribution to the YMCA. We also have a finance department to help track and pay for all this, administration to make sure it all runs smoothly, communications to tell you what we’re doing, public records to archive and manage and a human resources department to take care of our greatest asset, the employees who do all these other things.

That’s a full-service city that you really don’t see unless you get up to the sizes of Seattle or Tacoma, and even those have parks districts separate from the City. Right now, we’re in the process of building the 2017- 2018 budget. In  other words, figuring out how to pay for all this and still keep your taxes and rates as low as possible.

Watch the website at www.sumnerwa.gov for upcoming meetings to work on the budget, and stop in to hear more about what we do and how we pay for it.