Consolidation touched upon briefly at mayors meeting

The idea of consolidating Coulee area towns was discussed briefly at a recent meeting of area mayors, with the general opinion expressed being that it is complicated.

During the April 6 Regional Board of Mayors meeting, the group discussed at some length how to pull off a spring-cleaning event, a frequent topic with the group.

When asked by The Star if they felt consolidation would help simplify what seems to be a convoluted process by having one conversation instead of four between four different towns, a few spoke on the topic.

Elmer City Mayor Jesse Tillman laughed, saying that The Star “just tried to make a semi-convoluted problem way more convoluted.”

Electric City Clerk Peggy Nevsimal said that consolidation would not be possible with Coulee Dam and Elmer City being in different counties.

Grand Coulee Mayor Paul Townsend said that “consolidation would only take care of half the problem,” but didn’t elaborate on what he meant by that.

Grand Coulee, Electric City, and Elmer City each have 12 regularly scheduled council meetings a year, while Coulee Dam has 24. The Regional Board of Mayors has 12 meetings a year, bringing the total number of meetings among the four towns up to 72 a year.

Following decisions made by the RBOM, individual town councils frequently must approve the decisions themselves before the RBOM can finalize a decision, creating a back-and-forth dynamic between the RBOM and each of the four towns, with complications arising and delays taking place when one of the towns disagrees with an RBOM decision.

The four towns have a combined population of roughly 3,500, The Star reported earlier this year, with an additional 1,000 people living in unincorporated areas within the same Zip codes of the four towns.

This contrasts with the city of Spokane, population 217,000, represented by one mayor and holding weekly council meetings for approximately 52 meetings a year.

Closer in size, Omak, with an approximate population of 4,800, has two meetings a month, or 24 a year, and seven council

The phrase “Grand Coulee Dam Area,” with some variations, appears in some prominent places in the community: the Grand Coulee Dam Seniors, the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce, the Grand Coulee Dam School District, and a little weekly paper that’s been around about 80 years, The Star newspaper, “serving the Grand Coulee Dam Area.”

The phrase is regularly used in Star articles, and in email correspondence with people outside the area to simplify the process of explaining the “Coulee” without delving into explaining four towns and 13 unincorporated areas.

A committee for consolidation seemed to lose steam towards the effort when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Ben Hughes, who headed the committee, moved from the area last year.

Hughes had been planning to put the consolidation of Grand Coulee and Electric City on an upcoming ballot, which, if passed, would require the towns to consolidate, while Coulee Dam and/or Elmer City could be discussed later.

But that never happened, and the status of the committee is currently unknown as of deadline.

Chamber Director Rachelle Haven said that she wasn’t personally aware of any meetings of the committee since the pandemic, and that no one has reached out to her regarding the committee that the chamber has been involved in facilitating in the past.

A survey in 2016 conducted by the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce received 546 responses with more than 76 percent of survey respondents saying they were either strongly (59.9 percent) or somewhat (16.3 percent) in favor of consolidation, with the largest demographic being those 65 and older and in a household with only one or two people.

The commonalities between the towns is often used as the rationale for consolidation, with the towns sharing a school district, hospital district, and more.

Grand Coulee’s police department services Electric City, with Grand Coulee using Electric City’s water system and Electric City using Grand Coulee’s sewage treatment center.

Coulee Dam and Elmer City also share a sewage treatment center, which has lately been an item of contention between the two towns.

Fire fighters from all towns frequently work together in fighting area fires.