When Lacey became a city as the result of a positive election in November 1966, that wasn’t the last battle for the survival of the new city.
Lacey as a community, if not an incorporated municipality, had been around since the late 1800s. But it wasn’t until suburban developments began sprouting up after World War II that Lacey began feeling like anything other than a rural collection of houses. Somewhere in the 1950s the Lacey area surpassed Tumwater as Thurston County’s second largest community.
With the population expansion and the construction of the county’s single largest commercial development, the South Sound Mall, the question of Lacey cityhood was put to the voters. By an incredibly small margin (around 200 out of 3,000) cast, Lacey voted to become a city in 1966.
But, in one of its first acts, the newly formed Lacey City Council turned about-face and allowed a small portion of the newly created city (the so-called “Olympia fringe area”) to leave and become part of Olympia. The November 1966 election in that western section of the new city went poorly and accounted for the closeness.
Late in January of 1967 the “Olympia fringe area” voted overwhelmingly in favor of joining Olympia. While some residents filed suit over this later election, the courts upheld the results.
And, Lacey finally became whole, for at least two more years. In 1969, there came one last election for the existence of Lacey when both cities would vote on joining the two cities together. Or, more technically, Lacey would annex into Olympia.
Proponents of Lacey’s annexation to Olympia said that in coming together government would cost less, be more efficient and better plan for growth. “By 1975 the population of Thurston County will increase more than 40 percent — half again as many residents as we have now. Vigorous area wide planning is essential to cope with this growth,” read a pro-annexation advertisement.
Lacey, when it became a city, also inherited a major sewage problem. Proponents pointed out that by joining Olympia, the Lacey neighborhoods could tap into Olympia’s existing wastewater system rather than building their own solution.
Lacey at the time was at best only one-third of the size of Olympia. Even though it would be a serious addition to Olympia’s population, the proposition of joining the two cities wasn’t as serious as it would be today.
But in elections in both Olympia and Lacey, the question was voted down. The election was close in Olympia, with the difference being only 29 votes out of just under 3,000. In Lacey it was a much larger division with only 588 voting for annexation out of 2,200 voting.
Observers at the time pointed out that the enthusiasm for the election was low in Olympia with only a 16.5 percent turnout among the city’s 12,000 voters.
“I’m not surprised that the merger failed to go through,” Olympia’s Mayor Neil McKay said in the Olympian. “But, I did think that more Olympians would go out and vote.”
So, what happened in the end?
Both cities simply moved forward and cooperated. In the same article where he bemoaned the election results and voter turnout, McKay also pointed out that discussions about sewage lines abutting both cities were ongoing. Those issues were finally addressed when the three cities in northern Thurston County joined together in the LOTT Clean Water Alliance.
