Vancouver, Washington

How Vancouver is governed

Form of government not yet listed.

1 of 14 positions listed. Gray dashed boxes are placeholders waiting for a name.

• Mayor

  Executive

  • Anne McEnerny-Ogle per Wikidata

  The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.

  • City Manager / Administrator

    Executive

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    The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).

    • Police Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the police department.

    • Fire Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the fire and emergency services department.

    • Public Works Director

      Administration & departments

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      Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.

    • Finance Director

      Administration & departments

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      The budget, taxes, and city accounts.

    • Planning & Zoning Director

      Administration & departments

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      Land use, zoning, building permits.

    • Parks & Recreation Director

      Administration & departments

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      Parks, programs, and public facilities.

• City Council

  Legislative

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  The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.

  • City Clerk

    Administration & departments

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    Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.

  • City Attorney

    Administration & departments

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    The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.

  • Boards & Commissions

    Legislative

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    Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.

• Municipal Court

  Judicial

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  Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.

  • Municipal Judge

    Judicial

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    Presides over the municipal court.

Website

cityofvancouver.us

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Population over time

From 161,791 in 2010 to 190,915 in 2020 (+18.0%).

History

Early settlements and exploration

The Vancouver area was inhabited by several Native American tribes, most recently the Chinook and Klickitat nations, with permanent settlements of timber longhouses. The Chinookan and Klickitat names for the area were reportedly Skit-so-to-ho and Ala-si-kas, respectively, meaning 'land of the mud-turtles'. First known European contact was made by William Robert Broughton in 1792, with approximately half of the indigenous population killed by smallpox before the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived in the area in 1806. Within another fifty years, other diseases such as measles, malaria and influenza had reduced the Chinookan population from an estimated 80,000 "to a few dozen refugees, landless, slaveless and swindled out of a treaty".

19th-century beginnings

Meriwether Lewis wrote that the Vancouver area was "the only desired situation for settlement west of the Rocky Mountains". The first permanent European settlement did not occur until 1824, when Fort Vancouver was established as a fur trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company. From that time on, the area was settled by both the US and Britain under a "joint occupation" agreement. Joint occupation led to the Oregon boundary dispute and ended on June 15, 1846, with the signing of the Oregon Treaty, which gave the United States full control of the area. Before 1845, American Henry Williamson laid out a large claim west of the Hudson's Bay Company (including part of the present-day Port of Vancouver), called "Vancouver City" and properly registered his claim at the U.S. courthouse in Oregon City, before leaving for California. In 1848, Williamson had it surveyed and platted by Peter Crawford. In 1850, Amos Short traced over the claim of Williamson and named the town "Columbia City". It changed to "Vancouver" in 1855. The City of Vancouver was incorporated on January 23, 1857.

Based on an act of the 1859–60 legislature, Vancouver was briefly the capital of Washington Territory, before capital status was returned to Olympia by a 2–1 ruling of the territorial supreme court, in accordance with Isaac Stevens' preference and concern that proximity to the border with Oregon might give some of the state's influence away to Oregon.

20th century

The neighborhood of Sifton was the terminus of an early electric trolley operated by the Northcoast Power Company that also served nearby Orchards from 1910 until 1926. The trolleys made ten stops and ran once per hour, charging 15 cents each way. A mural in the heart of Orchards depicts the trolley and the rural character of the area at the time it was operating. The community was named after Doctor Sifton, a promoter of the trolley service.

According to the archives of the Vancouver Columbian newspaper, the Orchards-Sifton route ran along Vancouver's Main Street to 26th Street (renamed Fourth Plain Blvd.), then from 26th to K Street and thence north to 33rd Street. From there, it ran on 33rd over Burnt Bridge Creek and past the city limits. At that point the trolley became more like a regular train as it followed a cut through the wilderness. Few houses were seen between Vancouver and Orchards. The public's growing preference for motor cars in the 1920s heralded the end of the trolley.

Separated from Oregon until 1917, when the new Interstate Bridge began to replace ferries, Vancouver had three shipyards just downstream which produced ships for World War I before World War II brought an enormous economic boom. An Alcoa aluminum plant opened on September 2, 1940, using inexpensive power from the nearby New Deal hydropower turbines at Bonneville Dam. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Henry Kaiser opened a shipyard next to the U.S. Army base, which by 1944 employed as many as 36,000 people in a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week production of Liberty ships, landing ship tanks, and escort carriers. This influx of shipyard workers boosted the population from 18,000 to over 80,000 in just a few months, leading to the creation of the Vancouver Housing Authority and six new residential developments: Fruit Valley, Fourth Plain Village, Bagley Downs, Ogden Meadows, Burton Homes and McLoughlin Heights. Each of these was later incorporated into the city, and are well-known neighborhoods, while the neighboring "shipyard city" of Vanport, Oregon, would be destroyed by the Memorial Day flood of 1948.

Vancouver has experienced conflicts with other Clark County communities because of rapid growth in the area. The city's first annexation more than doubled its size in 1909, with the largest annexation of 1997 adding 11,258 acres (45.56 km2) and 58,171 residents. As a result of urban growth and the 1997 annexation, Vancouver is often thought of as split between two areas, East and West Vancouver, divided by NE Andresen Road. West Vancouver is home to downtown Vancouver and most of the more historical parts of the city, as well as recent high-density mixed-use development. East Vancouver includes the communities of Cascade Park East and West, which had populations of 6,996 and 6,956 in 1990, before annexation.

21st century

More than one-third of the Vancouver urban area's population lives in unincorporated urban areas north of the city limits, including the communities of Hazel Dell, Felida, Orchards and Salmon Creek. If county leaders had approved another major annexation plan in 2006, Vancouver would have surpassed Tacoma and Spokane to become the state's second-largest city. A 2025 proposal to annex the remaining urban growth area for Vancouver would expand the city limits by 56 square miles (150 km2) and add approximately 171,000 to the city's population. It is estimated to add up to $50 million to the city's budget deficit due to the cost of providing services to the new areas. The 2025 annexation proposal would, like the proposal nearly 2 decades earlier, make Vancouver the state's second-largest city.

Military presence

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Other cities in Washington

• Seattle 737,015
• Spokane 228,989
• Tacoma 219,346
• Bellevue 151,854
• Kent 136,588
• Everett 110,629
• Renton 106,785
• Federal Way 101,030

All Washington cities →