Telling it like it is

Medical Lake's City Administrator Doug Ross only has a long skinny window in his office, but he seems to have a pretty clear picture about what goes on in the town.

Tasked with how to best spend the $5.9 million yearly budget for the city of 5,000, and making sure there's just enough to go around, Ross said there are naturally many challenges.

It is projected that the city will end 2018 with just short of $1.8 million in reserves, seemingly a lot of money, but one never knows what emergency lurks around the corner.

That would seem to be enough for any number of projects. But in reality the num...