Wastewater dilemma has some saying "consolidation"

When Electric City’s leadership signaled last week that they want an independent attorney to rewrite an old, incomplete and ambiguous document governing the wastewater plant, they effectively put the ball in Grand Coulee’s court. 

Grand Coulee responded in kind — passing a nearly identical resolution at their Nov. 19 council meeting, and giving the wastewater plant’s joint board of operators some action items for their Dec. 5 meeting in Electric City. 

Then, Grand Coulee’s conversation turned toward the topic of the two cities coming together in an even more formal way.

“My only issue is, here we’re talking about hiring another attorney, and spending more money,” said Tim Snead, who was appointed to the council this summer after applying for a vacant seat.

“It seems more and more, Electric City and Grand Coulee need to consolidate to shore up additional services, and use that money that we’d be paying for the attorney to put [the consolidation question] on the ballot for Electric City and Grand Coulee to vote on it.” 

“I’d like to see us start working towards that,” Snead continued. “That’s just my two cents on this whole thing. I understand where we’re going [hiring an attorney to update the existing agreement], but the other side of me is saying, ‘Why do we continue to do this and this and this, when it would be a lot better for both communities to be one community instead of two communities?”

Councilmember Anita Eylar said she agrees.

“We have so many interlocal agreements, and some of them are just as old as this one is, that have not been renewed or reviewed,” Eylar said.

“Consolidation, you know, that’s a big word,” Eylar continued. “I don’t know how the communities are going to respond to that. But there is a lot of consideration for it. I’m not saying it’s going to happen tomorrow. But to start with, I think we do need to look at all these interlocal agreements.”

“That has been the answer to a lot of our woes for years,” said Councilmember Tom Poplawski. “The Grand Coulee council did vote, and passed a resolution to put it on the ballot. At that point in time, it was not added to the ballot by Electric City, so it didn’t go anywhere beyond that.”

Poplawski also referenced a study that showed residents of both cities were in favor of the concept of consolidating the two cities into one one, with one municipal government.

Clerk Lorna Pearce said one thing that stopped prior movement was no one had pinned down the cost to put the question to voters, which varies election to election based on how many other items or candidates are up for vote.

Snead said the best time to run one, as far as cost, is a presidential election year, or otherwise midterms, the soonest coming in 2026.

“Maybe it’s something that we all need to start suggesting to people around town,” Mayor Ruth Dalton told council members. “I mean, I’ve laid it on the table a couple of times.”

The council did not outline action items or next steps on the topic, which appeared to come up spontaneously and informally.

Regarding wastewater, the joint board of operators will discuss finding an independent attorney (not employed by either city) at its next public meeting: Thursday, Dec. 5 at 6:30 p.m. at Electric City Hall.

The wastewater facility is jointly owned by the two cities, and Grand Coulee effectively acts as majority shareholder, owning 63% of the plant’s capacity to Electric City’s 37%.

But questions have come up — mostly rising out of Electric City Hall — about the details of the interlocal agreement, and whether the wastewater facility’s joint board of operators has adequate oversight into the multimillion-dollar plant that reclaims wastewater from the two cities’ sinks, showers and toilets 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Electric City Councilmember Robbin Boyce raised concerns in August after reviewing the agreement. He learned, for example, that the joint board is supposed to meet a minimum of four times a year, but had not met at all in 2024. There were only three months until the end of the year.

Without those regular meetings, Boyce, along with his councilmate, Brian Buche, suggested the board was not performing proper oversight and that Electric City in particular deserves more transparency as co-owner of the plant.