Looking ahead toward growth, Moses Lake creates engineering division

MOSES LAKE — The city of Moses Lake will create an Engineering Services Division, divvying up roles currently held by the Municipal Services Department and expanding the city’s engineering staff.

The move comes amid prospective growth in the city’s industrial and manufacturing sector and as work is underway to update the city’s comprehensive plan, overhauling city codes and development regulations, City Manager Allison Williams said in an interview.

“The Engineering Services Division is the key division ensuring that when the city does a plan for growth,” Williams said, “we have also done our plans for servicing that growth and ensuring that we have a work plan deploying streets, sidewalks, infrastructure, and that we are doing development review consistent with that.”

Businesses that have announced they are moving into the region or else are considering it will require a rapid expansion of residential construction, Williams added.

“Many of these employers employ thousands of workers, and the concern is the housing stock,” Williams said. “In order to make sure that new subdivision can go in, you need adequate engineering staff to ensure plans can get through the process.”

Even before recent announcements of the potential restarting of REC Silicon and new manufacturers announcing their plans to move to the area, the engineering division was needed to provide focused oversight and management of construction projects already underway, Williams said.

While the Municipal Services Department has in the past operated with a number of professional engineers, there is currently only one, Williams said, and the creation of the new division will put an emphasis on filling out its ranks. The city council voted in early October to begin recruiting for the division’s director, with further recruitment to come after Williams and Municipal Services Director Fred Snoderly determine how to divide up the division’s responsibilities.

It’s also particularly important for the division to be created and staffed now, Williams added, while the city works to update its comprehensive plan for the first time since 2001, which will impact land use plans and development regulations and which can shape the trajectory of growth within the city.

“It is critical that we have the time within engineering to make sure that everything gets updated correctly so that we can serve the public,” Williams said.

Emry Dinman can be reached at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.