Ephrata discusses 2009 budget

Talked about sponsorship, recycling

EPHRATA - The Ephrata City Council discussed the budget for a new recycling center and the sponsorship of the Babe Ruth World Series at their meeting on Wednesday.

Early estimates put the city revenue at $14.1 million. This is about $400,000 more than last year. City Administrator Wes Crago said in a previous meeting the increase should cover raises and payroll. This leaves the city without any additional items outside of the current budget unless they cut money from other places.

One of the goals the council set for next year was to improve the city's recycling program. This came out as a $55,000 proposal for plastic recycling. Councilmember Heidi Schultheis asked why the $20,000 wood recycling project was dropped from the budget proposal.

"At this early juncture, my judgment is that we will be able to afford possibly one, either plastics or wood, and based on my interpretation of your discussion plastics had a higher priority than wood," Crago said. "I'm not sure if we'll have the money to do either of them, but I'm pretty confident that we won't have the money to do both of them."

Crago said the city still needed to look at what equipment they would need and what location they could use for a recycling center. The city talked with Walmart in Ephrata, but the company decided it couldn't risk possible legal problems if the items weren't stored correctly, he said.

"The current concept we've looked at is there would be a drop box for plastic," he said. "The city crews would take that, put it through the bailing machine and bail it into bite-size chunks and transport that to a recycling facility that is as close as possible. The other option would be shredding it which would be better for the sale and be better for transportation, but more expensive and a whole lot more manpower-intensive."

Crago said the city would probably have to reach out to other entities in the city or the county to help with it, but the staff was trying to figure out what the costs of the project would be.

"I think who's behind the boat here is the county," Councilmember Steve Lovitt said. "We had a place in Coeur d'Alene … you'd drive right by all of their recycle bins, until you have hardly anything left in your car and you dump what you can't recycle in the concrete canal and when it gets to a certain point a loader comes and pushes it and it goes off. Our county is way behind the boat on recycling."

The council also discussed a $10,000 sponsorship for the Babe Ruth World Series, which will be hosted in Moses Lake in 2009. Ephrata sponsored it the last time it was in Moses Lake in 2000.

"There was some discussion at the council in the year 2000, whether or not it was good for the region, good for Ephrata when the games were taking place in Moses Lake," Crago said. "Ultimately the council … sponsored it. Whether or not we do it again, of course will be (the council's) decision."

He said even if the sponsorship doesn't get into this year's budget, they can still apply through the tourism commission in the beginning of next year.

Councilmember Ben Davis said he wanted to see what benefit the city would receive by sponsoring the event.

"There's certainly the ability for it to be beneficial to the city," said Ray Towry, recreation director. "At this point, it's so preliminary. They literally were just awarded it a week and a half ago. We're going to have more discussions with them as to what will be entailed in that sponsorship."