Covey reflects on serving Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake Mayor Ron Covey reflects on his leadership career as it comes to a close.

He ran for election to the city council for another four year term but did not make it. As his final city council meetings are approaching, he finds himself thinking about what he’s done and where he is going.

Before Covey was mayor, he was a musical celebrity in Moses Lake.

“When I was young, I started taking guitar lessons,” he said.

Covey was 9 years old when he began playing the guitar.

His first guitar cost $8. He was told if he proved he could play, he could have a better one.

After about six or seven months proving he could jam on his cheap guitar, Covey got a Fender Telecaster. He still has the guitar.

As he honed his skills, he began teaching guitar lessons at age 13 and was eventually recruited by a music store to give lessons.

“I had 40 students a week,” he recalled.

When he was 14 years old, he got a call from someone asking him to be the guitarist in a show at the Moses Lake High School Sadie Hawkins dance.

It was Covey’s first job being a musician in a band for a dance.

He recalled how he was paid $5 an hour for two hours of work when minimum wage was only $1.25 per hour.

Eventually he was asked to be the full-time guitarist for the Rhythm Knights, a band comprised of a singer from Moses Lake, a keyboard player from Quincy and a drummer from Ephrata.

He also played in the Continentals and formed a third band, The Ravins, with his sister Marsha Maye.

“I’m always the tallest,” he said laughing while looking at old band photographs.

After his music career, he left home for college to become a chiropractor. He didn’t stay away for long because he came back and opened a practice. After establishing himself in the community, he joined the Moses Lake planning commission and eventually found himself appointed to the Moses Lake City Council.

“One of the nicest things that I have found in being a councilmember and mayor is dealing with employees of the city,” he said. “They’re just a great group of people. After 22 years of dealing with these people, I’m going to miss that.”

Covey is proud of several accomplishments he achieved through the council.

He said one of the most important is the construction of the fire station on Third Avenue.

“I am pleased with how the Japanese Peace Garden developed,” he said.

He worked on the garden since the beginning of the project on the planning commission and then on the council.

Covey said have parks and recreational activity is vital to the city because it benefits adults and gives youth something positive to do.

“Kids are a real important thing to me,” he said.

Covey has four kids and nine grandchildren.

“They make my world sing,” he said. “Without them, there wouldn’t be much. Kids are just what this world is all about. You want to do what’s best for them.”

He recalled when several youth asked the city to build a skate park. They were all about 10 and 11 years old. He was impressed they came to the city in a professional manner.

“So we put together a skate board park,” he said.

He loves how many ball fields are for youth and adults to enjoy.

“I’m very proud of what we did with our aquatic center,” Covey added.

The most recent features added was the FloRider.

“It just made ours a premier facility in the northwest,” he said. “People talk about that all over the state.”

He is proud of the downtown revitalization project despite the negative response from several community members.

“There are very few storefronts vacant,” he said.

As time passed, it seems more community members enjoy the project, Covey explained. There are now multiple restaurants and shopping choices in the downtown area.

“I only wish we had more money available to move onto phase two,” he said.

Phase two is a project the future council will decide. It involves expanding the revitalization project through the intersection of Beech Street to Balsam Street. It will tie into the new city hall project.

He recalled how the downtown area used to be free of people and vehicles after about 5:30 p.m. because there was nothing to do.

“It’s not that way anymore,” he said.

He is proud to be a part of building a new Operations and Maintenance Facility. Covey, along with other councilmembers touring the facility, found dirt floors and a cold and damp atmosphere, unacceptable for people to work in.

Afterward, they took action to have a new facility built.

“What a great project that was,” he recalled.

He is also proud of the work he and the council did to maintain the city infrastructure.

“I’m pleased with the fact that over the years, the city staff has had the foresight to maintain our streets,” he said.

They’ve done so through regular crack and chip sealing projects to keep the streets free of potholes.

Covey said there were some positions he took on issues that weren’t popular with the public but he voted the way he did because he wanted to do what was best for the community.

“There were hard issues no one wants to face,” he said. “As a councilmember, these questions come before us and you have to address them.”

He said it wasn’t popular for the council to ban fireworks from the city.

“In the long run, if it saved the sight of a child or it saved the life of one person, it was worth it,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many people came up to me afterward and said, ‘Thanks for sticking to it.’”

The ordinance regulating ownership of pit bulls, rottweilers and presa canarios was controversial, he recalled.

“People still don’t seem to want to understand,” Covey said.

Those dogs are not banned from the city, they are regulated, he explained. It was done to keep children and adults safe.

“It’s not the dog bite that we were concerned about,” Covey said. “It was the mauling. Someone could die from a mauling. It’s just a no-brainer.”

The ordinance was created to prevent people from having a dog for the purpose of intimidating others, he added.

The ordinance regulating the use of signs on city property and right-of-ways was another issue the public did not fully accept.

“We tried our best to reach some sort of compromise,” he said. “When we are interested in attracting people to come to Moses Lake as a tourist attraction, we want to make our city look the best that it can.”

Before his accomplishments on council, he was a member of the planning commission. Eventually he was the commission chairman. He served two terms as chairman before stepping down to allow someone else the opportunity.

He was asked to run for council by the community but initially said no.

Afterward, a councilmember resigned and the city was accepting applications for the position.

Six other people wanted the position, but Covey got it.

At the end of the appointment, he ran for election.

“I was elected,” he recalled. “There were some tough years in there.”

During his first elected term, he said the council was not very proactive and the majority of the councilmembers held negative attitudes toward the city.

“There were meetings I just didn’t want to go to because nothing was getting done,” he said. “It wasn’t enjoyable.”

Covey explained it was that same council that didn’t want to go forth with the construction of the fire station on Third Avenue and wanted to contract certain emergency services through a different fire department.

“I just didn’t feel that was right at all,” he said.

Covey and a minority of councilmembers were able to keep the decision to stop the construction through another election. After the election, several different councilmembers were put into place and supported the construction of the facility.

Eventually Covey was chosen among his peers to be mayor, but he never planned on taking on the role.

“It got to the point that I was the one that was probably next in line to be in it,” he said.

After talking with his family about the large time commitment the position requires, he gave it a shot.

“I never wanted to do anything halfway,” Covey said. “To represent the city the way I felt it needed to be represented, it was going to take a lot of time.”

His new duty was to be the spokesperson of Moses Lake and develop a voice for the community.

“I’ve attended as many as 25 meetings in the period of a month,” he said.

Covey said he is thankful to his family, especially his wife for supporting him and being patient when plans were cancelled due his council duties.

“She has been wonderful,” he said about his wife.

After his last meeting, he will have a lot of spare time and isn’t sure what he will do next.

“I’ve always been a believer that everything happens for a reason,” Covey said. “Sometimes you never know why things happen. Somewhere along the way, the reason pops up. I’m a Christian. I believe the Lord’s got something else in mind for me at this point. I don’t know what my calling is.”

He hopes to be involved with people and will do some traveling with his wife.

Covey said he wants people to remember him for his honesty.

“I think honesty and truthfulness are very important,” he said. “If I can trust you, that means everything to me.”