Ephrata asks EDC to help Katana

EPHRATA — The Ephrata City Council decided to ask the Grant County Economic Development Council for help in assisting Katana Summit with a wind farm projet in Kittitas County.

The company, which employs 121 people in Ephrata, asked the city for a letter of support with its complaint about a 95-turbine wind farm in Kittitas County. The company building the wind farm, enXco, is planning to use towers made by a Vietnamese company, according to Katana.

“We are currently building this exact tower for an enXco project in Indiana,” Katana Summit President Darrell Lehmann stated. “We feel that the economic stimulus funds for the proposed wind farm, the Desert Claim Wind Power Project will be using, would be better spent in the United States rather than abroad.”

While several of the councilmembers agreed with Lehmann, they wondered whether the city should be involved without knowing all of the information.

“Well if you write a letter, I don’t know if you can write it with enough background to know exactly what you’re talking about,” Councilmember Ben Davis said. “It looks to me to be a tough deal. The real push is if it’s publicly-backed money into this thing.”

City Attorney Katherine Kenison suggested the EDC would be a better organization to handle a letter of support. She said she’s reluctant to support the council lobbying for a particular business.

“I think it would be appropriate to maybe express support to the EDC that we would prefer to see them buying local, but I think that not only would the EDC probably be more in tune with what the market … but they would probably carry more weight,” she said.

Councilmember Heidi Schultheis  agreed this might set a precedent, leading other companies to approach to city for letters of support.

Councilmember Bruce Reim agreed with supporting Katana, but thinks the power would come from the EDC in this situation.

“My own little ladder that I climb up on with that outfit is that I’d like to see them represent us a little more,” he said. “There’s stimulus money involved in this. Most of the stimulus money that I’ve seen that’s come down the pike has a lot of fingers attached to it.”