The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG – Waitsburg’s City Council weighed in on the replacement Main Street Bridge design, watershed hunting, and gave a brief update on the fairgrounds grandstands at a well attended March 17 council meeting.

Public Comment

Days of Real Sport Treasurer Terry Jacoy requested that the council reconsider the removal of the metal rail that runs along the existing horse race track. Plans had previously been made to remove the rail and grass in the track to provide an open area for a new sports complex. The discussion item will be added to April’s board meeting agenda.

Commercial Club President Joy Smith requested that the Commercial Club continue to have an ongoing conversation with the council on economic development. “The first item on that agenda would be asking the Port of Walla Walla to build a spec building at the Waitsburg Business Park. They have it in their budget and we need a request from the Commercial Club and the council. It’s a valid request,” Smith said.

Smith also spoke about the need for the development of a parks and recreation committee to help procure grant funds for a proposed a bike trail between Dayton and Waitsburg.

Sheriff’s Office Update

Walla Walla County Sheriff John Turner provided a crime statistics update. Turner noted that there were 58 crimes in Waitsburg in 2013, 36 in 2014, and 31 in 2015.

“We’ve almost cut that in half in 24 months,” Turner said, commending the deputies. Turner did say that, violent crime due to narcotics and gangs is on the uptick. “We’ve had more violent crimes and shootings in the county than in the city since the first of the year. So even though the crime statistics are going down, we are very concerned about drugs and gang activity,” he said. “Those, as well as vehicle accidents are things we can’t unvictimize people from.”

Resident Gwen Gobel asked about progress on last summer’s Bruce and Wilson-Phillips House Museum burglaries. Swords stolen from the W-P House were recovered and returned but Turner called the ongoing case frustrating. “We have a pretty good idea of who did it. It’s just a matter of proving it. It’s not a closed case,” he said.

New Business

-The council approved the use of city streets for the annual Tour of Walla Walla bike race.

-The city approved a letter to the state Dept. of Transportation asking to abandon a 1960’s bypass project, release the access rights, and surplus the land. City Administrator Randy Hinchliffe said that, in the 1960’s, the state planned to build an east-west corridor through the state and purchased ground with the intent of building a 4-lane bypass of the city. That land runs past the fairgrounds, by the cemetery, along the bluff, and over to the Lower Hogeye, impacting several people on the east side of town.

Hinchliffe said the project sat and got mothballed until a recent request to the county for a boundary line adjustment brought the conversation back up. The DOT doesn’t intend to pursue the project and said the easiest option to “make it go away” is for the city and county to request to abandon the project, release all the asset rights and surplus the land, giving the adjoining landowners first rights to purchase it back. The county had already put forth that request, Hinchliffe said.

-At the request of landowner John Lindsey, the council agreed to add a discussion item regarding a possible transfer of land ownership from the city to Lindsey. The strip of land under discussion runs adjacent to Lindsey’s property, and he has been maintaining it.

Old Business

-The council authorized Mayor Walt Gobel and Hinchliffe to work with the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife to see if the existing “feel free to hunt” contract, covering the city’s watershed, could be amended slightly. As worded, the contract causes the city to assume more liability than it has without the contract, according to City Attorney Jared Hawkins.

-Last week, Gobel and Hichliffe met with “four of the dozen agencies” the city needs approvals from in order to replace the Main Street Bridge on the north end of town. The group reached a consensus that the engineers could wait a maximum of 30 days to receive a decision on the rail plans before placing the project’s timeline in jeopardy. In the meantime, the community will continue discussions regarding what the Main Street business corridor would like to see in terms of sidewalks and rail designs.

-Several attendees expressed a desire for the city to take the opportunity to install drainage culverts under the new bridge approaches, or consider other alternatives to prevent flood waters from pooling along the pool and park.

-Council member KC Kuykendall said he was encouraged to report that the fairgrounds grandstands are structurally in better shape than he had thought. A second, very preliminary inspection indicated that, while the grandstands should be deemed unsafe, the structure is a common design and similar structures have undergone renovations that were surprisingly affordable, Kuykendall said. He said he would return to the April meeting with a more detailed report and repair estimates.

“I’m coming away with a much more encouraged perspective on the potential of saving the grandstands than I was after just reading the previous engineer’s report,” Kuykendall said.