OTHELLO — If, and how, a roundabout at State Route 26 and South Reynolds Road in Othello is built, and how to pay for it, prompted a sometimes-bitter debate that spilled over to the Othello City Council meeting Monday. That followed the rejection Oct. 13 of a proposal for city officials to work with the Port of Othello to look for funding. Commissioner Deena Vietzke said port officials are interested in getting a roundabout at that intersection. 

“If you guys have any great ideas, I would love to work together,” Vietzke said. “It would be great to work together and try to figure out how we could do that.”  

Traffic has increased as development has occurred on 14th Street on the north side of the intersection. Traffic is controlled by stop signs on either side of SR 26. What to do has been the subject of continuing discussion, and on Oct. 13, council members considered a proposal to pay part of the cost of working on the prerequisites needed to apply for grants to build it. After some discussion, they turned it down. Vietzke and Chris Faix, port director, attended the Oct. 27 meeting to talk about the conversation Oct. 13.  

Council member Corey Everett said Oct. 13 he thought building a roundabout is a state responsibility, specifically, a Washington Department of Transportation responsibility.  

“Why is the city and the port getting involved? This is something DOT should be doing, not the city of Othello,” Everett said.  

Council member John Lallas said he thought the port would benefit, since it has developable property at that intersection. In that case, the port should pay for the project, he said.  

“We have an issue with the traffic,” Lallas said. “We’ve been dealing with it for 20 years.”  

Lallas and Council Member Angel Garza said that while there are traffic concerns at the intersection, it’s one the DOT will address, and do it relatively soon, in their opinion.  

Sebastian Moraga, communications specialist for the WSDOT North Central region, said the Reynolds Road-SR 26 intersection is not under consideration for any revisions, at least right now.  

“According to our program engineers, we don’t have any current plans for a roundabout at this intersection,” Moraga wrote in response to an email from the Columbia Basin Herald. “We are aware there have been past collisions at this location, but it has not been prioritized for funding the way other intersections statewide have been, given that they have been the site of more severe collisions.” 

Moraga said there’s a substantial list of requirements to determine priority for traffic control.  

“Crash experience is one of the factors, but not the only one,” he said.  

Among the other factors are the kind of vehicles, along with bike riders and pedestrians, that use an intersection, which type of vehicles use it the most, and balancing the different users. Any potential project has to take into account how much any revisions will cost, he said, and what kind of design would work best.  

Faix said port commissioners and staff have talked with WSDOT officials, and were told there were three options, the first being to wait for DOT to build it. There’s no timeline for that, he said. The second would be for local entities to build it to DOT specifications or pay for the DOT to build it.  

Everett said he was concerned the port would start but not finish the project, citing a development plan a few years ago that had to be abandoned. Faix said in a later interview that the city lost its funding for that project, and the port couldn’t pay for it alone.  

Lallas said the roundabout would improve the salability of the port’s property, which, in his opinion, made building a roundabout a port project. Faix said a roundabout would make port property more salable, but not make it valuable enough to pay for a roundabout, if the port paid for the whole project.  

“We’re not in the business to make millions of dollars. We’re here to serve Othello, make it better, make Adams County better,” Faix said. “We would like the city’s help. Mayor Logan and I have chatted; he came to me, we’ve talked about looking for some grant funding, working with a consultant, to try and get this roundabout to come in to benefit everyone involved.”  

    Drivers wait to cross State Route 26 at South 14th Street. Whether, and how, to build a roundabout at the intersection is still under discussion.