U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., visits the Washington coast and meets with Grays Harbor County leaders last month in this photo from The Daily World.
Rural communities need more federal help, local leaders told Sen. Maria Cantwell’s grants coordinator Thursday.
Lewis County needs a new 911 communications center. Cowlitz County needs funding to retain its Narcotics Task Force. Packwood needs a new sewer system. The timber industry needs a workforce boost. Winlock needs help rebuilding its police department. Communities need funding to fight the opioid crisis.
“I’d anticipate that you’re going to get a lot of phone calls and emails,” Lewis County Commissioner Bobby Jackson told Melanie See.
See was in Chehalis to give a presentation on federal grants, offering advice on creating strong proposals and offering to help local agencies polish their requests for federal dollars. She met with a sizable delegation of officials from Lewis and Cowlitz counties, many of whom had questions and frustrations about their own proposals.
That feedback was welcome, See said, even if solutions take some time.
“The more we hear specific examples of how grant programs aren’t working for communities, we can try to make efforts at the legislative level in either authorizing or appropriations bills to perfect those programs and make them work better for our constituents,” she said.
Area leaders were appreciative of the outreach and for the opportunity to emphasize their needs.
“(Rural counties) are up against some enormous financial situations here,” Jackson told The Chronicle following the event. “We need some help to get more infrastructure in place so that we can control our own destiny moving forward.”
See also provided an update on the federal spending bill released Wednesday, though many details in the 2,000-page document were admittedly still unclear. Early takeaways carried some promise though, with an increase in infrastructure funding, an expansion of a rural schools program, tax credits for low-income housing and money to help battle the opioid crisis.
In a rare moment of bipartisan affirmation, See told locals the Trump administration’s approach to grants may benefit local areas that can’t offer as much matching funding as their more urban counterparts.
“There’s been more of an emphasis with this administration in trying to provide more leniency in cases where they’re able to for rural areas that don’t always have the ability to make as big of a match,” she said.
In the end, area officials left with lots of material and the promise of future aid as they prepare grant proposals going forward.
“This meeting today provides an awful lot of information and possibly opportunity for us as we move forward,” Jackson said.
