SNOQUALMIE VALLEY – As frustration over Seattle’s dominion mounts among rural and suburban King County residents, local legislators are taking a serious look at going it alone.

The newly-introduced House Bill (HB) 2074 would create Cascade County from all parts of King County that fall outside of Seattle. HB 1500 defines the process of creating new counties statewide and was introduced in January. Last week, HB 1500 received a public hearing – a good sign the bill could be adopted. House bills must receive public hearings before being sent to the House for a vote.

Rep. Toby Nixon, R-Kirkland, who represents the 45th Legislative District, wrote both bills that have sparked much discussion around the Eastside over the past few weeks. He said much of this stems from the movement afoot to have an initiative in Washington similar to Oregon’s Measure 37, a strident property-rights law.

“A lot of people in the wake of the CAO (Critical Areas Ordinance) think we should have something similar in Washington. There was an initiative a few years back that failed; now that the CAO is in place a lot of people feel that way again. If we pass HB 1500 it might alleviate some of the pressure for that initiative, just in terms of opening a valve on the pressure cooker and letting some of the steam off,” Nixon said.

Kathy Lambert, a Metropolitan King County Councilwoman for District 3, is in the process of getting a feasibility study set up to determine how successful a split from Seattle would be for a new county. She said with Seattle out of the picture the remaining communities across King county would probably thrive.

“Originally people were thinking about just making the rural areas a county and not much else, but as people started talking about other cities it was a love fest … talking about how this city is great, that city is great … if it was just us working together we’d get along fine, so we said let’s examine that idea,” Lambert said.

Rep. Cheryl Pflug, R-Hobart, said when Cedar County was in consideration during the early 1990s, it seemed the new county comprised of everything outside of Seattle would be viable and that there would be “some fairly clear advantages to those of us who would be in that county.”

However, Nixon said HB 2074 probably won’t get a hearing this year.

“To be frank, with the democrats in the majority I don’t think the bills will have a great chance of passing. I think 1500 has more of a chance than 2074,” Nixon said, noting the only thing that would stop HB 1500 from going forward to the House would be if House Local Government Committee Chairperson Rep. Geoff Simpson decided to stop it from moving to the floor for a vote.

Still, politicians like Rep. Jay Rodne, R-Snoqualmie, feel the introduction of HB 2074 is an excellent chance to discuss a long brewing issue.

“Nixon indicated these are serious ills. He didn’t do this just to make a statement, I think we need serious discussion. We need to resolve some of these issues if we can ever go forward in an amicable way,” said Rodne, who mentioned the discussion around HB 2074 has coincided with the bill to create a 51st state out of Eastern Washington, which also resents the power of Seattle voters.

Rodne noted if HB 2074 were to come to fruition, forming a new county would be “a very lengthy process and ultimately the voters would have to decide.”

In the meantime, Lambert said emotions will continue to run high around the Eastside as those outside of Seattle long to make their own decisions.

“Someone asked me the other day what it would take for this all to stop. I think what it’d take is some of the leadership of the county to become more inclusive of other peoples’ views, but the Seattle centrality of all the decisions being made has continued to alienate rural people over and over and over again,” Lambert said.