The Association of Washington Cities - Part IV
The Benefits That Don’t Add Up
Parts 1 through 3 built the case. The structural imbalance is real. The policy outcomes speak for themselves. The institutional pressure when Yakima left revealed everything you need to know about how the system protects itself.
Now comes the final question: What are cities actually paying for?
Because when the pressure failed and the process games didn’t work, AWC defenders always fell back on one argument: the benefits justify the cost.
Let’s examine that claim.
Insurance: Show Me the Quote
Throughout the entire membership debate of close to two years in the City of Yakima, insurance was cited as a primary benefit: access to pooled programs, shared risk, and collective purchasing power.
Sounds compelling until you ask for specifics.
Yakima is self-insured. The city operates its own risk management program for liability, workers’ compensation, and employee health benefits. According to the city’s own job postings and benefits documentation, the City of Yakima “is self-insured and follows WA State requirements for local government self-insurance health and welfare programs.” The Finance Director position manages the city’s risk management fund, coordinates insurance broker selection, and oversees the self-insured workers’ compensation and medical/dental programs.
This is not unusual for a city of Yakima’s size. Washington has multiple insurance options available to municipalities:
Washington Cities Insurance Authority (WCIA): A pooled liability and property insurance program with over 165 member entities, founded in 1981. Notably, Yakima is not listed among WCIA’s members.
Cities Insurance Association of Washington (CIAW): Another risk pool founded in 1988, originally with 32 cities, now expanded to include special purpose and fire districts.
Enduris (formerly WGEP): A risk-sharing pool for special purpose districts.
Self insurance: Cities with sufficient scale and risk management infrastructure can operate their own programs under state regulation (RCW 48.62 and WAC 200-110).
Direct commercial insurance: Cities can contract directly with insurance carriers.
When the insurance argument surfaced during Yakima’s membership debate, the request was straightforward: provide a quote comparing pooled insurance costs to current self-insurance expenses.
That quote never materialized.
Not because staff forgot to ask. Not because time ran short. When I pressed both the city manager and finance director for comparative numbers, none were provided.
The absence of that quote is revealing. If pooled insurance through AWC-affiliated programs offered genuine savings over Yakima’s existing self-insurance structure, producing that comparison would have been immediate and compelling. The lack of data suggests one of two possibilities: either no one bothered to get the quote, or the quote didn’t support the argument.
Facilitation Is Not Free
Even when AWC does connect cities to insurance products, whether through WCIA, AWC’s Employee Benefit Trust for health insurance, or other programs, those products are not gifts. Cities pay premiums. Cities pay administrative fees. Cities absorb risk-sharing obligations.
AWC’s role is facilitation. That facilitation has a price: membership dues that fund the staff, infrastructure, and overhead required to maintain those connections.
The question is not whether insurance pools exist or whether some cities find them valuable. The question is whether AWC’s role in facilitating access to those pools justifies the cost of membership when cities can:
• Join pools directly (WCIA and CIAW operate independently of AWC membership requirements) • Purchase commercial insurance through brokers • Operate self insured programs under state regulation
For cities already self insured with established risk management infrastructure, paying AWC membership dues for insurance “facilitation” makes no financial sense. You are paying for a service you do not need to access options you are not using.
The Cost-Benefit Failure
If insurance savings were real and quantifiable for Yakima, the evidence would have been presented immediately. It would have been the centerpiece of the argument to retain membership.
Instead, what we got was silence.
That silence speaks volumes. When a claimed benefit cannot survive basic scrutiny, when a simple request for comparative cost data goes unanswered, the value proposition has failed.
Legal Services: MRSC Is Not AWC
MRSC gets mentioned constantly as a membership benefit. Legal research, sample ordinances, policy guidance. Genuinely useful for many cities.
Here is what gets left out: MRSC is separately funded and operates independently.
While MRSC was originally created in 1934 as the research arm of the Association of Washington Cities, it split from AWC in 1939. Since 1969, MRSC has operated as an independent nonprofit under Chapter 43.110 RCW. According to MRSC’s own documentation, the organization is “funded primarily through a state appropriation” that comes from a small portion of city and county liquor revenues distributed by the State of Washington to the Department of Commerce, which then contracts with MRSC.
This funding structure is critical to understand. MRSC receives state funding with support from both the Association of Washington Cities and the Washington State Association of Counties, but that funding “is not part of the state general fund” and flows through the Department of Commerce under statutory authority.
Most of MRSC’s services are offered free of charge to local government employees and public officials of all 281 cities and towns, all 39 counties, and hundreds of special purpose districts in Washington State. Eligibility is not contingent on AWC membership. It is based on being a Washington municipality.
AWC benefits from the perception that losing membership means losing MRSC access. That impression serves institutional interests. It is not accurate based on how MRSC is actually funded and structured.
The functional reality is this: MRSC’s value is not tied to AWC dues. It is tied to state appropriations flowing from liquor revenue and statutory authority under RCW 43.110. If AWC attempted to weaponize MRSC access based on membership status, cities could and should demand that MRSC continue operating as the independent, state-funded entity it already is by statute.
More importantly, for cities like Yakima with full in-house legal departments, MRSC is a reference tool at best. Yakima’s legal staff researches municipal law, drafts ordinances, and advises council without needing a third-party clearinghouse to do their job.
MRSC may save smaller cities without dedicated legal staff significant time and money. For Yakima, it is a convenience, not a dependency.
When convenience is presented as indispensable, you know the value case is weak.
Training: Widely Available, Not Exclusive
AWC offers training. Workshops, conferences, continuing education for staff and elected officials.
It is professionally delivered. It covers relevant topics. For newer officials and small-city staff, it can be informative.
It is also not unique, and much of what AWC offers is available at lower or no cost from other sources.
Training is available from multiple providers across Washington:
State agencies provide extensive free training. The Washington State Department of Commerce offers the Short Course on Local Planning, created in 1977 and provided free to all local government officials. The course covers mandatory training on the Open Public Meetings Act and Public Records Act, comprehensive planning under the Growth Management Act, land use planning laws, and roles in planning. Commerce also provides technical assistance through its Local Government Division on topics including broadband, infrastructure planning, sustainable growth, and economic development.
The Washington State Attorney General’s office provides free training on Open Government, the Open Public Meetings Act, and the Public Records Act available to all local officials at no cost.
Software and service vendors already working with cities routinely provide training as part of their contracts. Budget systems, utility billing software, planning applications, and public works management tools all come with vendor provided training because vendors have strong incentives to ensure city staff can use their products effectively.
Professional associations like the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), and the American Planning Association offer certifications, webinars, and resources independent of AWC. Many of these provide continuing education credits recognized across the country.
Regional networks and peer sharing happen organically among city managers, finance directors, and department heads who connect informally to share best practices without institutional overhead or membership requirements.
Online platforms and recorded sessions make training accessible on demand. Many state agencies, including Commerce, provide recorded webinars and video training that officials can access at any time.
Notably, even some training AWC promotes is actually provided by others. The Short Course on Local Planning, while sponsored in part by AWC’s Risk Management Services Agency, is created and delivered by the Department of Commerce with support from the Planning Association of Washington and the Washington Cities Insurance Authority. AWC sponsors it, but does not create or deliver it.
AWC’s training is polished and professionally delivered. It is also not irreplaceable, and in many cases, comparable training is available at no cost from state agencies with a statutory mandate to provide it.
When weighing budget priorities, the question is not whether training is valuable. The question is whether AWC’s training justifies membership dues when free alternatives of equal or better quality exist from the state agencies already funded by taxpayers.
For many cities, the answer is no.
Advocacy: Paying Someone to Undermine You
This is where the value proposition does not just fail. It inverts entirely.
AWC exists, first and foremost, to advocate. To be the voice of cities in Olympia. To defend local interests against state overreach.
That is the pitch.
The reality, documented exhaustively in Part 2, is that AWC’s advocacy consistently advances policies eastern Washington cities oppose.
Density mandates that override local zoning.
Right to Counsel that destabilizes small rental markets.
Encampment policies that remove enforcement discretion.
Climate regulations functioning as unfunded mandates.
Labor expansions that hit small cities hardest.
None of this reflects Yakima’s priorities. None of it makes governing easier or budgets more sustainable. None of it represents the values of eastern Washington voters.
And yet AWC calls this success.
Negative Value Is Worse Than Zero
Here is the critical insight: advocacy working against your interests is not simply worthless. It has negative value.
You are not failing to get a return on investment. You are funding active harm.
Remaining in AWC means continuing to pay an organization that lobbies for policies designed to restrict your authority, increase your costs, and impose Seattle’s priorities on your community.
That is not a neutral transaction. That is paying someone to work against you.
Hire Your Own Advocate
If representation in Olympia genuinely matters, hire a lobbyist directly.
For the cost of AWC membership, a city could retain a contract lobbyist who:
• Answers exclusively to your council • Advances only your priorities • Operates without structural allegiance to Seattle
That lobbyist would not celebrate progressive housing mandates as victories. Would not frame tenant protections that shrink rental supply as wins. Would not advocate for policies you oppose and then send you a newsletter praising the outcome.
They would work for you.
Why is this not standard practice?
Because AWC has convinced city officials that collective representation is more effective, more legitimate, more professional than independent advocacy.
That claim works only when the collective shares interests.
When interests diverge, and they clearly do between east and west, collective representation becomes a tool for the majority to impose its will while maintaining the fiction of consensus.
You are the minority. The board math proves it.
Hiring your own lobbyist is not isolation. It is accountability.
Influence: A Seat at a Table Where You Cannot Win
AWC responds to structural criticism by pointing to participation. Eastern Washington cities have board seats. Committee assignments. Opportunities to speak.
All true.
All irrelevant when you are permanently outvoted.
Participation is not power.
You can attend every meeting. Serve on every committee. Make the most compelling case ever delivered.
And when the vote is called, the math decides: 72% west, 28% east.
You lose.
This is not influence. This is the performance of influence. It is designed to make you feel included while ensuring outcomes never change.
The real influence belongs to one group: your voters.
Not the AWC board. Not Olympia insiders. Not institutional players with coordinated pressure campaigns.
The people who elected you. The people who live with the consequences of your decisions.
When AWC’s positions align with your voters, fine. When they conflict, the choice is simple.
You owe AWC nothing. You owe your constituents everything.
Economic Impact: Leverage, Not Partnership
As documented in Part 3, when Yakima’s membership cancellation became final, AWC deployed the conference argument. The pitch was clear: maintain membership or the annual conference relocates. Lose 300 to 500 attendees. Forfeit roughly $400,000 in gross economic activity.
What Part 3 revealed was the pressure tactic. What deserves examination here is whether the economic argument holds up under analysis.
It does not.
Gross Activity Is Not City Revenue
Gross economic activity is not city revenue. When conference attendees spend money in Yakima, those dollars flow primarily to private businesses: hotels, restaurants, gas stations, retail establishments.
The City of Yakima captures only a fraction of that activity through sales tax (currently 8.5% in Yakima, with the city receiving approximately 1.3% of that) and lodging tax.
Do the math. On $400,000 in gross spending, if half goes to lodging and half to other purchases, the city might see $4,000 in lodging tax revenue and perhaps $2,600 in sales tax revenue. That is roughly $6,600 in actual city revenue from an event generating $400,000 in gross economic activity.
Compare that $6,600 to the cost of AWC membership dues (close to $80,000/year), and the economic argument collapses immediately.
Conferences Follow Economics, Not Loyalty
Nothing prevents AWC from hosting conferences in Yakima regardless of membership status.
Organizations choose Yakima’s convention center for straightforward reasons: affordability, central location, adequate facilities, reasonable hotel rates. These factors do not change based on whether Yakima pays AWC membership dues.
If AWC’s conference truly benefits from Yakima’s location and pricing, the economic incentive to return remains regardless of membership. Conversely, if AWC chooses to avoid Yakima purely because of membership status, that decision costs AWC more money for equivalent facilities elsewhere.
Yakima did not revoke access. Did not raise rates. Did not impose restrictions.
AWC chose to condition conference location on membership. That decision reflects AWC’s priorities, not economic logic.
Leverage Disguised as Mutual Benefit
When an organization responds to membership cancellation by threatening to relocate an economically beneficial event, it reveals the transactional nature of the relationship.
This is not partnership. This is not collaboration. This is conditional access based on payment.
The implicit message is clear: pay the membership dues, or we take our business elsewhere, even if doing so costs us more and makes less sense logistically.
That is leverage. Pure and simple.
Organizations confident in their value do not need to threaten economic consequences when members leave. They demonstrate value, and members stay voluntarily.
The fact that AWC deployed the conference threat tells you everything about how weak the actual membership value proposition is. When you cannot justify dues based on services provided, you resort to threatening to withhold optional economic activity.
Economic Development Does Not Require Ransom
Cities should welcome conferences, conventions, and events that bring visitors and economic activity. Yakima’s convention center exists precisely to attract such events.
But economic development does not require paying institutional dues as ransom for conference access.
If AWC wants to host conferences in Yakima because it makes financial sense, excellent. Yakima’s facilities remain available at competitive rates.
If AWC chooses to politicize conference location and use it as leverage to maintain membership, that reflects poorly on AWC, not Yakima.
Cities should not have to fund statewide associations that work against their interests simply to maintain access to events that make economic sense for both parties.
That is not economic development. That is institutional extortion dressed up as mutual benefit.
The Actual Cost-Benefit
Summarize the value proposition:
Insurance: No savings demonstrated. No quote provided. Likely costs more than self insurance.
Legal services: Separately funded. Could operate independently. Unnecessary for cities with legal staff.
Training: Available from state agencies, vendors, professional groups, and online platforms at lower or no cost.
Advocacy: Actively harmful. Negative value.
Influence: Structurally impossible when you hold 28% of votes.
Economic impact: Conditioned leverage, not legitimate benefit.
Now weigh that against the cost.
Membership dues that could fund a park project. Partial salary for a police officer. Fire equipment. Road maintenance. Programs that directly benefit residents.
Every dollar spent on AWC is a dollar not spent serving your community.
The cost-benefit analysis is not close.
What Other Cities Should Do
Yakima is not unique. Every eastern Washington city faces identical structural dynamics.
If you represent Wenatchee, Spokane, Tri-Cities, Walla Walla, Moses Lake, Ellensburg, ask these questions:
Does AWC’s legislative agenda reflect our priorities or consistently advance policies we oppose?
When east-west conflicts arise, how often does our board representative prevail?
What specific, quantifiable benefits does membership provide that we cannot access independently or cheaper?
Would hiring our own contract lobbyist deliver better representation for the same cost?
Are we funding this because it delivers value, or because we have always done it and leaving feels uncomfortable?
These are not rhetorical. They deserve answers.
If the answers reveal AWC does not serve your city’s interests, the solution is obvious.
Govern Locally
Eastern Washington cities have accepted a fiction for too long.
The fiction that statewide representation means equal representation.
The fiction that participation equals influence.
The fiction that paying dues to a Seattle-dominated organization amplifies your voice in Olympia.
Yakima rejected that fiction. Twice.
The system responded predictably: pressure, process, economic threats, peer disapproval.
Everything except a legitimate answer to the simplest question: what value are we receiving?
Because the value is not there.
Worse, the relationship is actively harmful when the advocacy you fund works against the people you represent.
Your First Obligation
City councilmembers are not elected to maintain institutional relationships or preserve organizational comfort.
You are elected to represent your community.
When interests align with AWC, collaborate. When they conflict, choose your voters. Every time.
Local Problems, Local Solutions
Olympia does not know Yakima better than Yakima does.
Seattle does not know Wenatchee better than Wenatchee does.
AWC does not know your city better than you do.
That is not isolationism. That is the foundational principle of local government.
The people closest to the problem are best positioned to solve it.
Surrendering authority to statewide organizations that do not share your priorities is not governing. It is administering someone else’s agenda.
Stop Deferring to West-Side Influence
The political reality: the west side has the votes. That will not change.
But that does not mean eastern Washington cities must fund organizations advancing west-side priorities under the banner of statewide representation.
You owe AWC nothing.
You owe Seattle nothing.
You owe Olympia nothing when their mandates conflict with your community’s needs.
What you owe: honest representation of the people who elected you.
If that means breaking with institutional expectations, good.
If that means uncomfortable conversations at conferences, fine.
If that means being the second, fifth, or fifteenth city to leave, so be it.
Your job is not making the system comfortable. Your job is serving constituents.
The Path Forward
Yakima proved it works.
The city left. Services continued. Budgets balanced. Governance proceeded.
And Yakima reclaimed something critical: authority to set priorities without institutional interference.
Other cities can do the same.
Ask hard questions about value.
Assess honestly whether AWC’s advocacy reflects your community’s interests.
Then decide: do we fund this because it serves residents, or because it serves the institution?
If the answer is the latter, the choice is clear.
Cancel the membership. Redirect the funds. Govern locally.
Your voters will respect you for it.
Good Riddance
This series examined AWC from every angle.
The structural imbalance that ensures eastern Washington loses every important vote.
The policy outcomes that AWC celebrates while eastern Washington absorbs the costs.
The institutional pressure applied when a city dares to leave.
And finally, the claimed benefits that, under scrutiny, range from unnecessary to actively harmful.
AWC serves Seattle. It serves Olympia’s progressive consensus. It serves institutional preservation.
It does not serve eastern Washington.
For cities that recognize this reality, the conclusion is unavoidable.
It is time to leave.
It is time to stop funding advocacy that works against you.
It is time to stop pretending participation without power constitutes representation.
It is time to support your citizens directly, govern according to their priorities, and reject the pressure to conform to an organization that does not reflect your values.
Yakima made that choice.
Other cities should follow.
The Association of Washington Cities claims to represent all 281 cities in the state.
Eastern Washington cities should ask themselves: does it represent us, or does it represent the 72% that outvotes us every time?
The answer determines whether membership makes sense.
For Yakima, the answer was clear.
Good riddance.