Moses Lake becomes … Ephrata?

This newspaper ran a shocking photo on our front page last week.

No, it wasn't a gruesome car wreck or anything remotely scandalous — it was an architectural rendering of proposed plans for a redesign of downtown Moses Lake.

And I hated it.

After reading the story about the plans to redesign Sinkiuse Square, I was eager to look over the renderings and get a glimpse of what my hometown could look like in the near future.

But what I saw didn't look anything like what I would wish for Moses Lake's downtown. Instead, it looked shockingly similar to present-day Ephrata. In one drawing in particular, the architects had created a crescent of basalt columns almost exactly like the one in downtown Ephrata.

The firm that designed the proposed plans for downtown did the work pro bono, a kind and generous gesture, no doubt. But I hope to never see those plans come to fruition.

Don't get me wrong, the columns are great — for Ephrata. They match the columns on Ephrata's sign as you drive into Ephrata on Highway 17, and reflect the basalt cliffs of that area.

But Moses Lake deserves its own identity. The town is much further from those basalt cliffs, and has its own amenities and character to celebrate.

When I explain Moses Lake to someone who's never been here, or never been further off the freeway than Starbucks, I love to brag about the sunshine, the lake, the sand dunes, the gorgeous sunsets, the wonderful parks, the golf courses. Never once have I extolled the beauty of the nearby basalt cliffs, because, of course, they aren't nearby. They are an awesome and impressive feature of the Columbia Basin as a whole, but those cliffs are quite a way outside Moses Lake city limits.

The city needs to develop a plan for downtown that reflects what makes Moses Lake unique and a wonderful place to live, and ensure that comprehensive theme is also represented in the new highway signs Vision 2020 is working to create.

Moses Lake seems to be a town struggling to form a homogenous identity. Do we celebrate the blue heron, a bird I don't think I've ever actually seen here? Do we plant more metal palm trees throughout town, again, a representation of something not naturally found in this area? Do we latch onto Ephrata's idea, thus shamelessly admitting we have no identity of our own?

Or do we finally come together and form a downtown redesign that is also reflected in the signs which welcome visitors into the heart of downtown to enjoy what we all enjoy about living here?

Erin Stuber is the Columbia Basin Herald's managing editor.