Moses Lake mayor said it could come as early as Tuesday
Lori Barlow, associate planner for the City of Moses Lake, speaks to city council about the future of Third Avenue's sidewalks. Decisions regarding that street will likely be forthcoming, as the city wants to continue on focusing on improving other areas of downtown, such as Sinkiuse Square.<br>Sebastian Moraga/Columbia Basin Herald
MOSES LAKE — The experts' words were eloquent: Pedestrian circulation in the city is poor.
Vehicular circulation is poor, parking areas are undefined and with difficult access and the appearance of downtown streets and buildings is unappealing.
And this was in 1980.
Twenty-five years after the first study of downtown declared that the area needed a facelift, downtown is still waiting for it while facing many of the same issues.
Back then, the city thought something needed to be done to revitalize downtown. Money was spent, meetings took place and plans were drawn out, much like today. And like nowadays, the conclusions recommended wider sidewalks and gathering areas; landscaping and renovated store facades.
Mayor Ron Covey hopes the similarities end there.
"That plan," he said referring to the 1980 study by the University of Washington, "got set on a shelf, it would be paid for by now."
Now the city leaders are thinking things have to be different or another 25 years might go by just as easily. A decision on the future of Third Avenue's parking and sidewalks is expected for the next city council meeting Tuesday at 7 p.m.
The plan is to give a final boost to a major thoroughfare whose development city leaders say is vital to change the face of downtown and the face of Moses Lake to the rest of the state.
"I don't ever want to hear 'Moses Hole' again," councilman Lee Blackwell said in reference to the city's derogatory nickname. "It really irritates me."
Covey agreed, saying that many times he encountered a dispirited '"Oh" response from people when he tells them he is from Moses Lake.
"I would like to say, 'We have the most beautiful downtown,' I would say that 100 times a day if I had something to talk about."
That something to talk about is a lively downtown, with stores, narrower streets, and broader sidewalks, like the ones in Wenatchee, Ellensburg, LaConner and many other destination towns the city has been looking at.
The catch is, parking is the odd man out in this revitalization of downtown. Citizens have expressed their concerns that decreasing the number of parking spots may come back and bite the city when the downtown revitalization is done and people start coming to downtown.
"If we accomplish what we want, parking is going to become an issue," councilman Richard Pearce said.
Some citizens responded by saying that a parking shortage is a good thing.
"I want to have a parking problem," Chris Riley said. "It means downtown is vital."
With that difference of opinion in tow, Covey announced that the city council will make a decision on Third Avenue parking and streets regardless. Anything less is a recipe for inaction, and the city already has had 25 years of it.
"We should have listened in 1980," he said.
City Manager Joe Gavinski had two words to describe the reason why nothing happened with the plans back in 1980.
"City council," he said, referring to the council the city had back then. Covey does not want history to repeat itself.
"We will be known either as the council who took Moses Lake to the 21st century or as something less," he said. "I don't want to be something less."
Now the stage is set for a decision, disputed by some, awaited by others. Once a decision is made on Third Avenue parking and sidewalks, the city will focus on Sinkiuse Square, a Third Avenue spot mostly used as a parking hub, which indicates further discussion lies ahead.
"None of this is set in stone," Covey said. "We might have to go back and modify prior decisions to make the puzzle fit."
Going back weeks is fine with the city. Going back to 25 idle years is what they don't want to repeat. Gavinski said that as bleak as the study showed downtown to be, it was better then than it was now.
"We had Hatfield's, JC Penney's, dress shops, drug stores. Now it does not have the same vitality," he said, warning people that if things move forward, downtown will not go back to the way it was, but it will get to something that provides the desire to be there.
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