The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON - Dayton City Council approved Columbia REA's application for rightof way use during its regular meeting Monday night.

The meeting was moved up a week to accommodate councilors who will be absent for the usual second Monday of the month meeting. That meeting has been cancelled.

The decision to grant CREA a permit to run three underground power lines to its own office on Main Street and a fiber optic line for Columbia County's use at the county courthouse through the city's right-of-way took councilors through weeks of research and many heated debates, including a public hearing last month where a handful of residents and business owners responded with primarily negative feedback to the application.

"Duplication of electric services is not in the public interest," resident Jay Ball stated Monday night, which echoed his arguments presented in January.

But in truth, those councilors like Merle Jackson and Bill Graham finally agreed after nearly 45 minutes of debate Monday, the permit under discussion from CREA didn't have anything to do with "duplication of services."

That debate may have been preemptively settled since city councilors approved CREA's nonexclusive franchise unanimously last month. The franchise agreement, which the city has had with CREA for the last 10 years, grants CREA permission to sell electric services in Dayton. This hasn't been tapped into yet, but the right has already been granted.

Currently only Pacific Power serves residences and businesses in town.

City Attorney Kim Boggs, however, responded to Jackson's alarm - that his fears of "duplication of services" may already be negated since council approved CREA's franchise agreement - with reassurances that the argument wasn't "negated."

No word on what that meant specifically were discussed.

Other councilors were worried about the unattractive underground transformers, damage to streets and potential for overcrowding the city's right-of-way. A description of the project by CREA's project manager as well as a closer look at the city's engineer report persuaded most councilors to accept the application.

"And with our new ordinances in place, any damaged streets might turn out looking better than they do now," said City Clerk Trina Cole.

Any safety issues, such as confusion caused by multiple ownership of utility lines by safety personnel, could be addressed in the language of the permit if approved, Boggs said.

Councilors Kathy Berg and Christine Broughton, however, voted against the motion to approve the application.

"Certainly under this application I can see the project isn't going to help residents, but I don't see that this particular permit will hurt residents either," Graham said before voting in favor of the permit.