Townsend wants to keep mayoral work

Grand Coulee's incumbent Mayor Paul Townsend is seeking reelection.

"I'm looking forward to another opportunity to continue on serving the community, and hopefully we just keep growing and improving our position," Townsend told The Star on Monday. "Bottom line is we need information and support from the citizens in the community. The council very seldom gets information in response from citizens until it's something negative. We need to know what the citizens want. We're making decisions. We have public hearings for that reason. We want people to come in and voice their opinions, be active in the community. This is your community. We are serving for you."

Townsend is in his first term as mayor and was on the city council for over two terms before that, having started by filling a vacant seat.

Townsend owns TNT Welding and RV in Grand Coulee, which he describes as a struggling entity just like the city.

He believes that his experience of owning a business here, as well as his time as mayor and on the council, plus about 20 years served on the fire department, have equipped him with experience that is valuable toward fulfilling his duties as mayor.

"When I came into the mayor position, I felt there were so many things that were not taken care of," Townsend said. "I feel like we've gotten a lot of it taken care of. It's been an eye opener to find out how limited the mayor's position is. When I first came into it I figured I could really straighten things out, and the realization was that the council really runs the city; the mayor implements it. He's an information person."

Townsend said that providing the council with good information about the city is a large part of the job.

The city has been fixing its financial situation in the past few years, and balancing their budget.

"We're still working on it," Townsend said. "That's probably one of the biggest things is getting our financials in order. That's been a real struggle. Making sure we get things in place so they don't get out of shape again. It's all about communication. Being on the council, I had not really noticed how bad things were getting because we weren't getting better information. So information is everything."

A lot of the struggle with the city has to do with money, Townsend explained.

"Our city maintenance crew - they do a great job on a very limited budget," he said. "You look at some of the things they have to do, and you can tell that we just don't have a lot of money to really make it beautiful. Bring brand new roads in, wouldn't that be wonderful? No money. It's a huge, huge expense."

A 0.2-percent sales tax increase for the Transportation Benefit District implemented last year has been bringing in money for improving roads, $85,627.63 since July of 2018, according to City Clerk Lorna Pearce.

"We are seeing some money building up from that, and it's going to take time because it's expensive to redo roads the way they should be," Townsend said, adding that he's happy the sales tax applies to tourists because they use the roads, as well.

Townsend elaborated more on the difficulties of running a city, and his wishlist for what it could be.

"You look around our city, there are parts of it that look great and parts that don't, and it's just so hard," he said. "I have a vision where everything would look more modern. And I would love to see us get a theme for the city, something that would be practical and usable, something like what other cities have done."

"The chamber's doing an awesome job of bringing outside people in, developing the area, and that's probably the biggest asset we have," he continued, saying that it's ironic that tourists can annoy locals because they crowd the roads and stores but that they bring in money that helps the community.

"So therefore we want to encourage people to come here. I'd like to see more generated here to keep people here instead of just passing through," he said. "My wish for the town would be something that could make this even a destination. Why wouldn't this be? What don't we have that Lake Havasu does? Look at this! We have more water than they do! But we just don't have the development of it. Part of it is we're encroached by all the government agencies. We don't own any of this waterfront. So that creates the issue. I think as far as a resort town, why couldn't this be?"

Townsend's opponent in the election, Cameron Whitney, proposes addressing the issue of what he calls "slumlords" in the town, something Townsend feels isn't the town's responsibility.

"I'm a constitutionalist," Townsend said. "I don't like government over reach. ... There's such a line there. On one side, we want to make things better for the average low-income citizens. We want to do whatever we can, but at the same time, do we want to governmentally control businesses? So where's that line? That's the tricky part. ... If it's unsafe, a bad environment, there are already legal paths to follow."

"All I know is, this is a wonderful town," Townsend said. "Every time I drive into Spokane I realize why I love living here. There are things we give up, conveniences that we give up in a small town. But it more than outweighs not having to deal with the hustle bustle, crazy lifestyle that goes on 24/7 in a big city. That's the blessing of our town; we have to accept the little bit of inconvenience."