Crago takes Ephrata skills to Spokane

EPHRATA — When he first arrived in Ephrata in 1989, Wes Crago was convinced he wasn’t going to stay long.

“I came here fresh out of college, an incoming assistant coach and history teacher, and I thought I would never be here more than a couple of years,” he said.

But Crago, who hails originally from Yakima, said he quickly fell in love with Ephrata, with a small town that loved its schools and had a strong sense of community.

“And this community has given me nothing but opportunity to serve, to be part of big things, to get to organize a team of people and to do things that are pretty amazing,” he said.

For the last 16 years, Crago has been Ephrata’s city administrator and has helped give the city a solid reputation for good and efficient government.

And because of that, Ephrata, population 8,100, has given Crago the opportunity to take on the job of city administrator of Spokane, population 220,000, in the administration of newly elected Mayor Nadine Woodward.

Crago doesn’t start his new job until February. But he has already been kicked out of his office in Ephrata’s city hall, and he has surrendered his place during city council meetings to his successor as city administrator, former Ephrata Police Chief Mike Warren.

While Spokane is a significantly larger city, Crago said what he has seen and experienced so far in his visits and conversations suggests that things aren’t that much different.

“It’s the same job, same functions, leading the staff, following the direction of the mayor, following the guidelines, policies and laws of the council,” Crago said. “Even the culture of the city departments is very, very familiar.”

“It’s just that the scale has changed,” he added.

While he may have been the very public face and voice of the city of Ephrata during much of his time as city administrator, Crago is emphatic that it takes a team to do the work. And that’s true in both Spokane and Ephrata.

“We don’t do anything by ourselves here,” he said. “We do a lot of our work collaboratively. Yes, I make the final decision, but the senior staff at the city, we all have a share in that decision-making process, and I think you get better decisions that way.”

“All these lessons we’ve learned here — accountability, transparency, teamwork, keeping partisan politics out of our decisions, I’m taking all of that to Spokane,” Crago said.

“Spokane is very similar. The mayor is non-partisan, wants to do the right thing, the staff is wired that way. It’s surprisingly familiar culturally,” he said.

His political career began nearly 30 years ago, when as a high school civics and history teacher, he convinced some of his students who were angry about the city’s curfew to have a formal debate on the subject.

“Because the students went from 90 percent against to 70 percent in favor, the mayor at the time thought that was pretty cool,” Crago said.

As a result of the fairly positive attention that garnered, Crago was appointed to an open seat on the city council, where he served for 10 years. When City Administrator Mike Cherf retired in 2003, Crago thought then-mayor Chris Jacobsen was joking when he suggested Crago as Cherf’s replacement.

“We all laughed, and then I realized the mayor was serious,” Crago said. “I didn’t go to school to be a city administrator.”

Despite that, Crago said he is proud of the work everyone in Ephrata has done to put the city on a solid financial foundation, thanks to citizen-led and voter-approved initiatives to increase police funding, replace aging city fire equipment, and ensure there is money to maintain city streets.

“Voters had a say in every one of those steps,” he said.

Crago said he’s looking forward to the challenge of getting to know Spokane — its various neighborhoods and “subcultures” — and is impressed that Spokane appears to have a handle on its homeless problem, one of the major differences between the little city he has run and the big one he soon will.

“Homelessness is a small part of the city government’s job in Ephrata, but it’s a very large part in Spokane,” he said.

Crago also had a few words of encouragement for his successor.

“Mike Warren needs to do it his way. It will be different. It will be better, and a year from now, people will be wondering who Wes was,” Crago said. “The town is functioning well, and going forward, it will continue to grow and prosper and be better.”

At Wednesday’s city council meeting, Crago bowed out with characteristic humility.

“And with that, Mr. Warren,” Crago said after delivering his last city administrator’s report, “I’m sitting in your chair.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.