Othello hosts budget retreat, hears from Chamber of Commerce

OTHELLO — Monday’s regular Othello City Council meeting featured an informal budget hearing on the city’s preliminary 2024 budget, as well as a brief update from the Greater Othello Chamber of Commerce.

Mayor Shawn Logan introduced the budget hearing.

“Tonight is our opening budget hearing, and this is the first hearing where the council is going to walk through all the outstanding decisions it still needs to make with regard to our budget,” he said. “Final decisions won’t be made until the next series of meetings.”

Othello’s Finance Director Spencer Williams said the focus of the workshop would be larger, one-time capital purchases known as red zone items. Williams said that the city’s property tax collection led to an increase in $400,000 for the general fund, but the council still must go through the funding requests and balance the budget, including all of the city’s funds.

“This is where we start looking at priorities, and having this discussion (about) what you as council want to see us move forward with,” Williams said.

The available money listed in the meeting’s agenda packet totaled approximately $22.8 million for all of the separate funds. The majority of red zone item requests were for the general fund, with about $838,000 in requests out of the $672,000 available in that fund.

Prior to the budget retreat, Chamber President Thalia Lemus and Chamber Manager Jackie Wilhelm provided an update on the chamber’s activity and focus over the past year and for the future as they revamp their operations.

“Right now we have a really supportive board, really involved,” Wilhelm said. “While we revamp, we are coming up with a new vision and mission. We want to be the trusted resource for relationship-building, economic travel and tourism expertise and the key driver of business and community prosperity. So we want to be able to represent and promote businesses, network with businesses and also support local needs.”

Wilhelm elaborated on the chamber’s plans for achieving that goal.

“Some of the ways that we want to do that is we would like to increase the amount of free community-wide events offered in Othello. This would give the community something to look forward to on a regular basis and keep people in our community and impacting our local economy in a positive way.”

Lemus said the chamber would like to see an event in every season, if possible. 

“Another thing we would like to implement,” Wilhelm said, “is we would like to promote to our youth and continue to give them opportunities to engage in our community by giving back and serving our hometown.”

Wilhelm said that local businesses are how the chamber gets its support and resources.

“Some of the ways that we have talked about giving back to these businesses is by providing networking opportunities,” Wilhelm said. “Hosting monthly coffee hours, business after-hours, business leaders lunches, and also being able to provide some training and resources for myself and the board in order to better serve our business leaders and just help all of our businesses grow and engage with each other.”

Lemus commented on the chamber’s overall goal.

“We want to drive tourism to Othello, and we want to support the businesses that we have in this community,” she said.

For the meeting, the council was also provided data in the agenda from city staff regarding the traffic patterns on Othello’s Fourth Avenue after the recent installation of four speed humps on the road. 

“The data collected after the speed humps were installed indicate that they were effective in reducing speeds and the percentage of speeders at all locations,” stated the agenda memo. “The largest reductions were in the number of vehicles traveling over 40, 50, and 60 miles per hour.”

The agenda memo recommended the city continue to analyze the speed-hump traffic data through the winter and spring to see if the speed humps remain effective and if additional improvements need to be made.

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com. Download the Columbia Basin Herald app on iOS and Android.

    Greater Othello Chamber of Commerce President Thalia Lemus, standing left, and Chamber Manager Jackie Wilhelm, standing right, provide an update during Monday’s Othello City Council meeting on the chamber’s activity over the past year and what they have planned for the future. Council member Corey Everett, seated, listens to the presentation.
 Gabriel Davis/Columbia Basin Herald   

    Othello City Council members and city of Othello staff listen to the Greater Othello Chamber of Commerce as they update the council during the public comment portion of Monday’s council meeting.
 Gabriel Davis/Columbia Basin Herald