Brian J. BarrAs White Center’s grown from a scary-seedy hood to a cool-seedy hood, its marriage to Seattle has, at times, seemed inevitable. As former SW music editor (and current contributor) Brian J. Barr noted in a recent essay, creative Seattle’s southwestern migration has continued unabated, due to factors mainly having to do with housing affordability. Except, as Tracy Record reports, Seattle’s municipal government can’t seem to stiffen up and consummate this marriage.Predictably, Seattle’s reticence has to do with dreary fiscal forecasts (get in line; it’s a long one). As Record reports: “The prospects of Seattle annexing White Center (and other parts of the still-unincorporated area) brightened at one point last year–as first reported here–when the Seattle City Council voted to put the city on ‘a path’ toward a potential annexation vote this fall. However, that path seems to be dead-ending, at least for now. A new report has led the mayor’s office to throw cold water on the idea, because of budget woes. The report was prepared for the City Council, which wanted more information on the potential costs, among other things, and you can read it in its entirety here. Lots of detailed reading, but bottom line: The annexation area would cost the city $16 million more to run each year than it would bring in. And the deferred street maintenance needed by the area would cost tens of millions of dollars to catch up with–leaving the city with ‘one-time’ expenses of annexation running $91 million.”Bummer, right? Not if your name is the Surly Gourmand. In recounting how Burien had beaten Seattle to the punch by annexing its half of White Center, our stridently irreverent food blog columnist recently wrote: “Luckily, the city of Burien has recently discovered bronzeworking, allowing it to station some phalanx units within the city walls so Seattle won’t take over. That having been said, don’t annex the northern half, Seattle! Your sniveling and anal-retentive ways will destroy the anarchic frontier character of a neighborhood that somehow juxtaposes a porn shop across the street from Full Tilt Ice Cream. Don’t make White Center into Wallingford. Jesus will cry.”Sounds like a bumper sticker to me.