Royal City OKs funds for police car, park survey
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 years AGO
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | July 20, 2022 4:02 PM
ROYAL CITY — The Royal City City Council Tuesday evening considered buying a patrol car from the Soap Lake Police Department to fill a need identified by Royal City Police Chief Rey Rodriguez but decided against it, instead budgeting available money for a vehicle already on order. Another vehicle is sorely needed, said Royal City Police Chief Rey Rodriguez.
“Right now we only have three vehicles,” Rodriguez said. “And we have four of us who are working right now. We have Hannah (Soelter), who just started yesterday in Moses Lake, she's taking her personal car now. We reimburse her for her mileage, obviously … So, if we don't get at least a temporary one, we're going to be shuffling vehicles, and right now we have take-home vehicles because when we go out on calls, we've been taking our stuff out, putting the other stuff in.”
The police department currently has a Ford Explorer on order from the state, explained City Finance Director Shilo Christensen in an interview later. The vehicle was previously expected to be available in July, but its current estimated availability date is September, and even that is uncertain.
In the meeting, Christensen pointed out that the city has funds from a federal program that could be used to purchase the vehicle outright. The money would come from the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund, part of the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill passed by Congress last year.
“We received the COVID money from the federal government,” Christensen said. “Right now we have $624,000 that's been allocated to us … Those funds could be used for police vehicles. So this vehicle that we're purchasing, what do you think about instead of using general funds, which we can use on anything anyway, we can use these COVID funds that we have to use? We have to commit these COVID funds by 2024, or else we lose them. Personally, as a finance person, if I have use-it-or-lose-it money or money I can spend on anything, I want to use the use-it-or-lose-it money first.”
The council ultimately voted to budget $65,000 from the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds - also known as SLFRF - for the new vehicle.
The council also voted to allocate up to $7,000 to engineering firm Anderson Perry & Associates, based in Walla Walla, to survey the land east of the existing city park and determine exactly where the lines are between city-owned and privately-owned property, as a step in the process of expanding the park. The city has applied for two grants to help cover the cost of the expansion, but won’t find out until next June whether those grants are approved.
Joel Martin can be reached via email at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN

Perfect blooms
Tips for entering flowers at the fair
MOSES LAKE — You’ve worked all year to make your flower garden a thing of beauty. What better way to show it off than to enter them in the fair? The Grant County Fair has divisions and classes for every kind of flower or flower arrangement under the sun. Valerie Parrott, president of the Columbia Basin Garden Club and a judge in the fair’s horticulture barn, has tips for making your flowers look the best they can. “Flowers are judged on how close they are to perfection,” Parrott said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re the smallest flower or the largest flower. It only matters how close to perfect the bloom is.” With that in mind, Parrott said, timing is crucial. Exhibits are dropped off Monday morning of fair week, which this year is Aug. 11, and judging begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday. That means the flower you’re entering needs to be perfect right then.

Civil Air Patrol cadets take to the skies over Ephrata
EPHRATA — There couldn’t have been a better climate to teach teenagers to fly in. “We’ve had really good weather,” said Civil Air Patrol Lt. Col. Kathy Maxwell. “Usually by now we’ve had a smoke day or a windy day, or an overcast day.” The CAP cadets are wrapping up the second week of this year’s Desert Eagle National Flight Academy, held every year at Camp Boucher at the Port of Ephrata. Nineteen cadets from around the country, plus one from Japan, came to Ephrata to learn the basics of flying: airplane systems, pre- and post-flight procedures, navigation. In between they’re flying around the Ephrata Airport, first with instructors, then finally solo. The skies between Ephrata and Moses Lake are pretty mellow for flying, but that doesn’t mean there will be no surprises, cadets said.

‘Everyone Has a Why’
Campaign seeks to bring opioid addiction out of the shadows
MOSES LAKE — The reasons for addiction are many, but everybody has one. That’s the point of a campaign by the Grant County Health District to highlight opioid addiction and overdoses. It’s part of a two-phase campaign to explain some of the reasons behind addiction, and encourage people to seek help. “It can be loss, or pain, or struggle, but everyone has a reason that they may start using substances,” said Lexi Smith, communications coordinator for the Grant County Health District. “But on the flip side of that, everyone has a reason that they don’t, or that they choose to help someone who does.” The tagline for the Everybody Has a Why campaign is “Make addiction a conversation, not a secret,” and removing the shame of seeking help is a primary aim.