Othello council approves grant application

OTHELLO — The Othello City Council on Monday is seeking a $550,000 grant from the state’s Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) to fund repairs on Lee Road from Seventh Street to 14 Street and approved a match of up to $83,000 from city funds in order to ease the city’s grant application.

“We’re trying to keep this work under $600,000,” said Kurt Holland of Varela & Associates Engineers, which is heading up the project for Othello.

Holland told council members that the work on Lee Road will involve pulverizing the current asphalt and raising the road bed but will leave widening the road for future development.

“(Board) projects tend to run for two years,” Holland said. “But we’re going to push to get this done in the next year.”

The state Transportation Improvement Board funds “high priority transportation projects in communities throughout the state to enhance the movement of people, goods and services,” according to the board’s web site. The source of the funds come for a 3-cent tax per gallon gasoline tax.

Washington has the second-highest gasoline taxes in the nation, at about 49 cents per gallon.

Holland said that while board-funded projects only require a 10 percent match, the city’s chances to obtain the grant will improve significantly if it can provide a 15 percent match.

Lee Road is the truck route into the northern part of town where several of Othello’s largest employers — including potato processor McCain Foods and agribusiness conglomerate J. R. Simplot — are located.

“Lee Road is in terrible shape,” said Othello City Administrator Wade Farris.

For council member John Lallas, it was important that a section of town that contributes so much to the city are also a priority for the city.

“Two industries with a tax base that they pay will want something,” he said.

Next week, work is slated to begin on the city’s long-awaited First Avenue reconstruction project, which will involve tearing the street up and redoing it from SR 26 to Spruce Avenue. According to Holland, the work is supposed take about seven weeks.

The city council also approved spending $27,000 — $3,000 a month for nine months beginning on Oct. 1 — to hire Gordon Thomas Honeywell Government Affairs to lobby for the city both in Olympia and in Washington, D.C.

“This will make us more effective, especially with the other side of aisle, in dealing with Democrats in Olympia,” Farris said.

Logan explained that the city with the inability of the state legislature to pass a capital budget, the $1 million appropriated for water projects in Othello goes back into the pot and has to be fought for all over again.

“Everything is on the table again,” Logan said. “Now we need some professional help.”

Logan said Othello needs more investment — commercial and industrial — as well as infrastructure improvement the city simply doesn’t have money for. As mayor, he’s traveled to Olympia several time during the previous legislative session, something he said affects his business.

“I’ve been to Olympia five or six times since the first of the year,” he said. “I can’t keep doing that.”

When asked where the money would come, Logan said the city would draw from each of its funds as needed.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.