Bending the local legislative ear

City of Cheney officials have laid out some priorities they feel are important to achieving a healthy economy and safe community — and they would like local state legislators’ help in reaching those goals.

The City Council approved these priorities at one of their final meetings of 2018, and not surprisingly, water is at the top of the list. Specifically, water city officials feel is needed to meet summer irrigation demands.

Cheney has had to impose irrigation restrictions during stretches of hot weather for four the past five summers — three times in 2018 alone. Officials claim the city is able to meet its domestic water needs year-round by using just two of its six operable potable water pumps, but must bring on the other four to meet irrigation demand in the summer.

Even with the added pumping capacity, Cheney has had to curtail irrigation at times, leading to brown residential lawns, parks and school district facilities. A $1.8 million redrilling of Well 3 appears to be able to increase the city’s capacity when it comes online, possibly this summer.

“Well 3 doesn’t completely solve the problem,” City Administrator Mark Schuller said in a recent interview. “We need to have a discussion on a long-term solution.”

“Long-term, sustainable water,” Mayor Chris Grover added.

Grover, Schuller and others believe one of the answers to the irrigation problem is utilizing the city’s wastewater treatment plant to its fullest designed potential as a water reclamation facility. But that is expensive, with some early estimates putting it in the $17 million to $20 million price range to outfit the facility and install a “purple pipe” system that would mainly run to parks and school district facilities.

Grover said it’s a safety issue as well as aesthetic, especially with city and school district playfields where hard, rough surfaces can lead to injuries.

A second priority for Cheney is supporting efforts of Eastern Washington University officials to get funding for a much-needed renovation of its Science Building. The university received $67 million for its new Interdisciplinary Science Center early in 2018, and is seeking around $100 million to renovate the existing Science Building next to it.

Grover and Schuller said both facilities are “critical” to the development of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum in the region, and Eastern officials have highlighted their growing production of graduates in the field of robotics and the location to the area of companies that would employ those graduates.

Schuller admitted that for Cheney, the Science Building project would bring in a much needed economic boost in the form of sales tax on construction materials. He and Grover said they plan to emphasize the importance of all of these factors when they meet with legislators in Olympia on Feb. 13-14 as part of an Association of Washington Cities annual lobbying trip.

A third major priority is State Route 904, although this has fallen down the list since Grover replaced former Mayor Tom Trulove in 2017. Trulove was key proponent of widening the main highway into Cheney from Interstate 90 and Four Lakes to the north to four lanes as both an issue affecting safety and economics.

The project has been included in the state’s Horizon 2040 Long-Term (2025-2040) Regionally Significant Projects plan, but construction is not expected to take place until the final year of that plan.

“We’d like to work with our legislators to see if we can get that bumped up on that list,” Schuller said.

“As we grow, the traffic on that road (impacts Cheney), and we’ve already maxed out our economic ability,” Grover said. “That certainly makes it a safety issue.”

A separate issue of possibly moving the Central Washington Railway portion of the Palouse River and Coulee City Railway line that crosses SR 904 at Betz Road — and leads to traffic blockages when long, 115-car unit trains pass — is less likely, both Schuller and Grover said. State officials have told the city they would be more successful with achieving a widening of SR 904 than moving of the tracks from crossing the highway.

Other issues important to Cheney that officials wish to discuss with legislators are limiting unfunded mandates and fully funding the state’s Public Works Board trust fund —money that many small cities have relied on to pay for utility project but which the state has raided in the past to support other budgeting priorities.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].