MATTAWA — Unopposed and opposed candidates for Mattawa City Council and Mattawa mayor attended the South Grant County candidate forum Oct. 25 at Wahluke High School, put on by the South Grant County Chamber of Commerce.

Incumbent mayoral candidate Maria Celaya and incumbent council candidate Brian Berghout were not in attendance. Candidates answered the same questions and spoke about various topics and issues in Mattawa.

Youth

Mayoral candidate Jaime Gutierrez said his primary concern for the city is the youth.

“Our youth, our children, they're going to be the base of this community once we start stepping down and we got to start by motivating them, by getting the police officers, just, everybody to be united because if they start seeing separation then they're going to think it's okay,” Gutierrez said. “First, we have to, everybody, come together and come to an agreement … because we're letting the community down and it's full of so much potential with so many good people. It's just getting that motivation and those great people in the right seats.”

Council candidate Amanda Havens also mentioned youth in the Mattawa community. 

“There's really nothing for our youth around here,” Havens said. “We wonder why there’s so much gang violence and drugs. Because our kids don't have anything to do … We don’t even have a pool, something we can have for our kids to do so we're giving them other options than to just go the gang line or to the drug life.”

Unopposed candidate Alexander Heredia also spoke.

“Our kids are definitely something that we need to focus on,” he said.

Spending

Moving to discussing spending, candidate for city council Fabiola Hernandez said she would like to focus on law enforcement.

“I want to spend more money on police because we need more protection in town,” she said.

Heredia also talked finances.

“Another thing is focusing on rates, not only so we can be sufficient with our growth, so we have money to operate, but have enough money to save some on the side,” he said.

Heredia also said that the more the city can invest in infrastructure capacity, such as water and sewer, the more it can invest in housing development. 

Incumbent and unopposed candidate Sun Hwang provided his input. 

“Mattawa is a very small city and we don't have revenue to accommodate a lot of things, so I don’t see any budget items that can be reduced,” he said.

Hwang said law enforcement is a priority of his.

Communication

Hernandez said her primary concern for the council is communication. 

“I’d like my community to be able to know why they are charged that much money for water, for sewer,” she said, “and why the price is going up. I would like to make sure everybody's treated the same.”

Hernandez said she wants unbiased law enforcement and government in addition to the city posting information more frequently.

Havens also emphasized communication.

“Communication is a big part,” she said. “The city doesn't know exactly what's going on.”

Havens said not everybody has the time to attend city council meetings, so information should be more readily available to citizens. 

“We need to let our community know more, we need to find a different way to communicate what's going on and why it's going on, and I feel like we would have more people coming together,” Havens said. 

Gutierrez said he values communicating with the youth in Mattawa.

“I think our main focus would be focusing on our youth, on our teenagers … reaching out to parents,” Gutierrez said. “I think our youth are going to be our growth to this community, and that’s one thing that we need to start targeting more.”

Heredia said communication between members of the council and other entities is also important. 

“I think my main thing is being a council member isn’t just being a council member in Mattawa. A council member is pretty much representative of all the South Grant County,” Heredia said. “You get to talk to people from Royal City, Moses Lake, Quincy, Grant County, Washington state. Now one thing I can build on personally and with the council is … working cohesively as a whole team pushing, South Grant County forward. I’m not saying that we don’t, but sometimes everyone's going down their own lane, their own path.”

Housing

Havens explained her position on housing in Mattawa.

“I think that we should focus on first of all our housing, and the people that are in a community all year round. I think that's a big thing,” Havens said.

Havens also said they need to work on Mattawa’s economy.

“I think we need to make things more affordable for the people in our community and maybe find a way that we can be better distributors,” she said. “Everything the person needs for their daily lives, we need to make it more accessible.”

Hernandez said housing in Mattawa requires more space to develop.

“We don’t have room to grow,” Hernandez said. “We don't have a lot of space where we can go … Maybe we can get more land. We want to be able to get more housing.”

Hwang also spoke about the issue. 

“Since I'm a local businessman, I'm always interested in bringing a variety of business into town and also we need housing,” Hwang said. “Everywhere I think there are housing issues, especially Mattawa … For the city to bring in more housing, we need to bring in a lot of resources and help with the developers and also help them get financial resources.”

Heredia explained other aspects of development in Mattawa.

“One of the biggest challenges that we’ve had in this city over the past decades, and more recently, is our comprehensive plan and just our planning in general. We’ve got a new engineer, and we've also planned not just for next year or two years, we're trying to plan out the next 10 to 15 (years).”

Water

Hernandez spoke about irrigation in Mattawa.

“When people built Mattawa, they forgot about people wanting to have a garden and they forgot to put some irrigation to use irrigation water for a garden. Instead of that, they put in one main line. We have to use that water for everything,” she said. “It's too late to fix it … One thing the city is doing is trying to get more water rights to support the growth of the community.”

Havens also said water availability is an issue. 

“I don't know if there is a way that we could bring in irrigation water to the city,” she said. “I don't know if there is a way, but that would be a great thing to do. I don't honestly think that our community can afford any higher water, sewer and garbage bills. It's already very high.”

Gutierrez expressed the importance of water.

“It’s looking at the numbers and just reaching out to the right people, because if you want growth, you need water,” he said.

Before the forum wrapped up the city council portion, Sun Hwang spoke about the importance of working together in the community.

“To be able to make the community grow we have to work with the other agencies in Mattawa,” Hwang said. “We need to put more effort into working together, and I think this is a good start.”

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com. Download the Columbia Basin Herald app on iOS and Android.

    Incumbent and unopposed Mattawa City Council candidate Sun Hwang, left, speaks during the candidate forum for South Grant County Oct. 25 in Mattawa.
 Gabriel Davis/Columbia Basin Herald   

    Four of the five candidates for Mattawa City Council and one of the two candidates for Mayor attended the South Grant County Chamber of Commerce’s candidate forum Oct. 25. Mattawa City Hall is pictured.
 File photo