Electric City mayor hopeful about year ahead

Diane Kohout became the new mayor in Electric City just before the COVID-19 pandemic started, but that hasn’t stopped her from doing her mayoral duties. 

In speaking with The Star over the phone on Monday, she said her two biggest hopes for the city are for the pandemic to end, as well as to increase public input on projects and other citizen concerns, communication between the city and residents being an issue that she and new council members ran on when they were elected in 2019. 

Part of increasing public input, something made challenging because of Covid, is holding an “informal community input opportunity” on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. at the American Legion Vet Center, where citizens can talk about various projects and concerns with the city. 

“It took me a long time to plan because of Covid,” Kohout said. “But I have cleared it with everyone that I can think of as far as our ability to do this event. So it’s no different than somebody walking into a grocery store, then walking out. People will be able to walk in, we’ll have different tables set up with information. They can walk up to a table. They can take the handout, they can talk to the person at the table, and then if that’s all they want to talk about then they can walk out.”

Masks will be required, hand sanitizer will be available, and all the tables will be at least six feet apart, she said. “We’re going to try it and see how it works.” 

Citizens will also have the opportunity to fill out comment cards and drop them off or submit comments online, Kohout explained. 

Mailing information to the residents has been another way of communicating to them, and Kohout makes herself available to residents to call her on a phone that’s on from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. every day and will call residents back if she misses their calls. 

The phone number to reach her is 509-631-1501 and can also be found on the city’s website at electriccity.us.

“I think I might be one of the first ones that ever did that, gave access to myself for the public,” she said. “I just felt it was the right thing to do.” 

Kohout can also be found at city hall, where she spends a lot of time throughout the week. 

Despite the challenges of Covid, Kohout said that “we’re still trying to move forward and trying to get the public’s input on these projects and the issues that face the city so that we can make a decision that’s based on not only our feelings towards an issue but the residents’ feelings towards an issue. … Covid has shut the doors of city hall, but we are still working behind those locked doors like normal.” 

Kohout said that while Covid has caused some lost income for the city in some areas, some other sources of income have increased. 

“Sales tax increased because people had to stay home more,” she explained. “They had to order things online to be delivered to their home, which means the sales tax then goes to that city; so instead of going to Spokane to Costco and having the sales tax go there, now the Costco order is delivered to Electric City and the sales tax is going to Electric City.”

Lodging tax funds also increased. 

“It increased because of all the camping,” she said. “We have the resorts here. So the camping went up tremendously because people couldn’t travel in other ways to go on vacation, so they did a lot more camping than has been normal for us.”

Both Coulee Playland and Sunbanks Lake Resort are within the city limits.

Some projects have slowed down during Covid but are still moving forward. 

Kohout hopes that a pedestrian trail along SR-155 heading towards Grand Coulee will be completed this year after designs, which will be available to view at Saturday’s event, are approved and the project goes out to bid. 

More sidewalks along Coulee Boulevard is another project that should happen this year. 

Both of those projects will increase safety for pedestrians, Kohout said. 

“Once [pedestrians] have a designated pathway, then they are not walking on the fogline of the road; they’re back behind the guardrail,” Kohout said about the pedestrian pathway. “They will also have a chain link fence on the water side for safety. In case there’s a little kid riding his bicycle or something, I wouldn’t want someone to lose their balance and fall down over the rocks. It would not be a good thing to have that happen, so we’re going to put up a chain link fence on the other side, high enough that it protects people but not that it obstructs their view.” 

Speed limit changes could also happen within the city limits, but Kohout wants public input on those before they are approved. 

“We’re seriously working at prioritizing infrastructure needs, such as streets, water, and wastewater mains,” Kohout said. “Especially the wastewater main right now because we do have an issue with that. … The spalling that has occurred means possible holes in the pipe and that means more possibility of a collapse happening sooner rather than later so we need to try to resolve that issue as quickly as possible.”

With the controversial Ice Age Park plan now dead in the water, Kohout says that a community park is still very much a possibility. 

“We have to start over,” she said, “but the planning commission is very much on board with this. They do want a community park. And so I’m sure this year they will spend time trying to get something planned so hopefully next year we can look at options for funding besides what we have already. It’s obviously going to delay it by a year or two.”

Kohout also noted having to raise rates at the Delano Transfer Station as another challenge coming up this year, a result of the county landfill in Ephrata raising their rates beginning March 1. Local trash taken to the Delano transfer station is taken to Ephrata for final disposal.

“It’s going to be a challenge because people are going to be unhappy that it’s going to cost a little more to take stuff to the transfer station,” she said. 

As far as being the mayor goes, Kohout said, “It’s been an extremely high learning curve for me this year. … I didn’t know all of the processes and laws that cover a city. And then because we had so much turnover, I was pretty much left to my own when I took office. It’s been a bit of a tumultuous year but we’ve made it through, I’ve learned a lot. I know that I don’t know everything, but I feel much more confident in knowing what to do, who to talk to, that type of thing. I do work quite a bit at city hall. I’m not sitting at home or doing other things, I am there almost every day. I do take it seriously.”

Overall, Kohout is optimistic about the coming year.

“I think we will be able to get these projects going,” she said. “And hopefully the pandemic will be under control and we can have our Colorama and all those activities back again.”