The remaining agencies in a partnership considering the regionalizing of fire service in south Snohomish are suspending their efforts after a number of cities and a fire district dropped out of the plan.

Representatives from the City of Mountlake Terrace, the City of Brier and Snohomish County Fire District 1 voted to pull back on planning of a Regional Fire Authority at their March 13 meeting.

“At this time we are not going to be going forward with the RFA, but after approximately 30 meetings and two years later, we’ll still be looking at it,” Mountlake Terrace Mayor Pro Tem Laura Sonmore announced on Monday. The next meeting of the RFA planning committee is scheduled for Sept. 18; Sonmore hopes the group can continue to meet on a quarterly basis after that.

Originally consisting of nine members in March 2011, the group had seen an exodus of Fire District 7 and the cities of Lynnwood, Edmonds, Woodway, Mill Creek, Mukilteo over the past few months. “It became apparent that with the number of agencies that had dropped out that it wasn’t cost effective to try to regionalize with just the three of us,” said Mountlake Terrace City Councilmember Doug McCardle.

“Right now, with two cities and a fire district, and with the way the economy is right now, it doesn’t work at this time,” Sonmore added.