Positive approach energizes

Last week you published an article about the Coulee Dam/Elmer City sewer plant project that painted a very positive face on the Coulee Dam Town Council. And, as it was, they earned that praise — they deserved that praise! They were courteous, they were interested, they were responsive, and they were focused on a better and more flexible project path. As an active participant in that meeting I also found the town’s engineer to be more thoughtful and open to other/different ideas and solutions … bravo to them all! I left that meeting reenergized and anxious to begin the process of working “with” Coulee Dam, Elmer City, and the Colville Tribe … working to find grant monies and other ways to reduce the large and looming sewer rate increases.

Mayor Snow and two council members were not at that uplifting council meeting and it is my hope that they too will embrace this and a more unified and flexible approach. Of course this means a bit of bruised pride to some, and maybe a dinner or two of crow for others … a small price when it comes to saving us all (each family) nearly $600 each year on our utility rates.

As with most things, synergy only works when there are willing and equally respected (and respectful) partners. For this to work, the town of Coulee Dam must become a ship-mate, not “just” a captain barking orders from the wheel-house on a ship floundering dangerously close to the rocks. Or better yet, they could (should) realize that there are other and more applicable metaphors that define a “partnership.” A paradigm, if you will, where both input and decisions are better made from left to right as opposed to from the “my way,” top-down method heretofore embraced by the Coulee Dam mayor and town clerk. Letting (helping) this happen takes the kind of leadership we all saw from the Coulee Dam Town Council, a few weeks ago.

Synergy and symbiosis often require change and “compromise;” then too every once in a while, it prefers a “consensus.” Let’s hope we are actually on one of these two paths, preferably the latter — there is just more bang for the buck when you get/have that “consensus!” It’s time to break the old adage of, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

We shall see. Will Mayor Snow, the other two council members, and even the town clerk/treasurer follow the more positive and progressive lead, or will they continue to be divisive and rift with obstruction?

Greg Wilder