Welcome to The Newsfeed.

In today's episode, we're taking you to a different part of Pierce County, where some residents say they should be split from the county.

Multimedia Journalist Jaelynn Grisso explains the effort to create an entirely new one.

- It'd be great if we can keep our local dollars local, because we feel a lot of times those dollar bills go across the bridge and pennies come back, and that's what we don't want.

- Gig Harbor resident Damon Townsend started a committee to determine whether he could create a new county called Peninsula County.

The new county would include Gig Harbor, where I'm currently standing, as well as other nearby communities like Fox Island and the Key Peninsula.

Townsend points out that the region is already geographically distinct from the rest of the county.

He also says he started the committee because of limited resources from Pierce County.

- What really set it off is we had three brutal, brutal murders over on the Key Peninsula, and we had very slow response times from the Pierce County sheriff.

And when we found out that the Pierce County rural, Pierce County unincorporated, has the lowest per capita sheriff's deputies of any jurisdiction in America, not just in Washington, but in America, we realized that, you know, over there in the Peninsula area, we provide a lot of tax benefits to the county, and we don't get the same level of services in return.

- Another example is Fox Island Bridge.

- The Fox Island Bridge is one of the longest county owned bridges in the state, is failing, and the county doesn't have a big plan to fix it.

- He also says folks in what would be Peninsula County are underrepresented in the county council.

- The Peninsula County area is represented by 100,000 registered voters, which is county council seven.

The county council six only has 60,000 registered voters.

So we don't even get equal representation in the county government.

The Pierce County Executive's Office declined an interview, saying, quote, this exploratory effort involves an extensive public process that does not include any input or decision making authority by the Pierce County Executive, end quote.

Other residents who would be part of the new county have also expressed concerns about separating from Pierce County, especially Anderson Island residents.

That includes Jeremy Kamel, who is chair of the Anderson Island Citizen Advisory Board.

- The biggest point of concern for people is the ferry.

And that's, for islanders who only have access to our homes via the county-owned the ferry, that's obviously going to be the biggest point of concern.

That's always all islanders main point of concern.

Even because we don't really have any services on our island.

- Kamel said that he has hesitation about the access to resources being improved if Peninsula County were created, because the county would have to take on costs that Pierce County currently covers, even if at a smaller scale.

- And so, you know, this new proposed county wouldn't have nearly, nearly the resources and and so what would that look like?

- Only five new counties have been created since Washington's founding.

The last one was Pend Orielle County in 1911.

Part of the process is outlined in the state constitution, which says it must have a petition from more than half of voters.

Case law from a failed attempt to create a new county called Cedar County in 1998 further defined the process.

The state Supreme Court clarified that the voter base should be determined on registered voters, not just the number who voted in the last election as Cedar County attempted to use.

And even once the signatures are gathered, the final decision is up to the legislature.

For Townsend, he says this isn't the only option, but he thinks it's one that's worth exploring.

So it's not the only solution, right?

The county could take care of us more.

But, you know, there's always, there's always an opportunity to look for other ways out.

- I'm Paris Jackson.

Thanks for watching.

To see this week's stories from Pierce County, visit CascadePBS.org/TheNewsfeed.