Quincy swears in new mayor, council member
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Quincy City Clerk Nancy Schanze swears in Quincy’s new mayor, Paul Worley, at a regular meeting on Tuesday.
QUINCY — Quincy swore in its new mayor and a new council member at a regular meeting of the city council on Tuesday.
Paul Worley, who handily defeated Scott Lybbert in November with 58 percent of the vote, said that he wanted to accomplish as mayor “everything we got started and haven’t finished.”
“Fixing the police department, finishing the stupid roundabout project, finishing putting Q Street all the way through from Third,” said Worley, who has been on the city council for the last 16 years. “City Hall will be done within a year.”
“Stuff that’s on the books that will take four years to get done,” the new mayor added. “Finish the job.”
The city is currently rebuilding much of its civic center complex. However, the projects to remodel the library and city hall have been on hold since the $5.6 million police department building was finished behind schedule in late 2016.
Quincy has received a $1.8 million state transportation grant to convert the intersection of F Street Southwest and Road R Northwest/13th Avenue Southwest to a roundabout.
Joining Worley in taking the oath of office were incumbent council member David Day, who begins his second term, and local businessman Andrew Royer, who started his first term on the city council Tuesday.
“I grew up here, left for a few years in the 1990s for college, moved back to run family businesses in 2000,” Royer, a married father of two, said. “I’ve been approached other times about running, but it never seemed right.”
“But this time, someone came to me and it just seemed like it fit with where we were in our lives,” Royer said. “So we decided to go for it.”
Royer, the managing partner of Basin Pacific Insurance in Quincy, said he didn’t have much of an agenda for the next four years.
“I just want to listen, ask questions, and hopefully make good decisions,” he said.
The council also held a brief public hearing on a request from Western Sunset LLC, a firm based in East Wenatchee, to annex about 59 acres to the city immediately south and west of Quincy’s industrial wastewater treatment plant.
“Years ago, the reed beds (on the parcel) were used to help filter the water, and there is some plan to tie into the industrial treatment,” said city Building Official Carl Worley.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.