The mediation carousel between the City of Centralia, Lewis County and the Port of Centralia continues to spin.
Two weeks after the Centralia City Council provided its initial thoughts on the county’s mediation terms, the county and city have traded counter offers as they work toward a solution regarding the city’s moratorium on the development of large distribution centers and warehouses. Mediation aims to reach agreement on future development of port properties located within the city’s boundaries and urban growth area (UGA) and associated infrastructure improvements.
During the Oct. 14 discussion, councilors agreed to participate in the mediation with the county and the port but disagreed with the county’s expectation that elected officials be the voting members during mediation. Councilors asked that the city manager, county manager and port executive director take on that responsibility, but the county rejected that proposal.
On Tuesday, the council responded to the county’s final proposal to coordinate mediation between the three jurisdictions. After receiving multiple options from City Manager Michael Thomas on how to move forward, the council opted to ask the county and port to set up a “pre-mediation meeting” before the official mediation takes place.
Centralia Mayor Kelly Smith Johnston proposed the idea of establishing an informal meeting between her, Thomas, Port of Centralia Commission President Kyle Markstrom, Port Executive Director Kyle Heaton, Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope and Lewis County Manager Ryan Barrett. She said the current “back and forth” is not working and is inefficient.
“The six of us sit down and have an informal conversation that does not have binding mediation, arbitration or anything attached to it to try to at least figure out, if we were to do mediation, what might we agree with?” Smith Johnston said. “That would still come back to you all. Or, what are some of the things that we’re concerned about, and can we just have a conversation about them? I think what we need to do is to assume positive intent, assume that we all want the best and have a conversation in good faith and see what we can come up with.”
Further, as a secondary option, Smith Johnston proposed a joint public meeting between the city, county and port. The council voted 6-1 on a lengthy motion that approved a pre-mediation meeting as the first option to send back to the county and a joint public meeting as the “backup” option in case other parties disagree on a pre-meeting. Councilor Max Vogt was the lone opposing vote.
Thomas told the council that the port sent a letter to the city stating its desire to see the council’s vote on the mediation agreement tabled for a future date. Additionally, he said that city staff’s main concern is that if the final proposal were approved as is that it would set a precedent for other entities and agencies to challenge the city’s sole authority to do its own zoning and control its own land use inside city limits. The proposal seeks to remove the zoning limitations upon the port and other developers within city limits, Thomas said.
“While some of these terms of the proposal are improved, there are also some concerns that the terms to both enter mediation and the results of the mediation and how they would become binding upon the city are still too vague and open to too much interpretation that may box the city into a corner if not properly considered,” he said.
Councilors made numerous comments on the struggles just to enter the mediation process, with Norm Chapman stating that the process is being “controlled” and Mark Westley adding that “there seems to be not much of a negotiation process.” Westley asked City Attorney Kyle Manley about whether the county’s final proposal is a good deal.
“The biggest issue that I saw is that while we aren’t necessarily compelled to reach an agreement with the county or the port through this mediation process, the agreement specifically states that obviously there’s huge pressure, external pressures and political pressure to reach an agreement,” Manley said. “But, once an agreement is made, we essentially have agreed to implement via legislation whatever agreement is made. We have essentially negotiated away our rights to control our own legislation through this. In my professional opinion, this is not in the best interest of the city.”
According to Vogt, the mediation agreement should say nothing except that the three jurisdictions plan to mediate and that all of the current negotiations should be included in the mediation process.
“Every other discussion about whether it’s the port property or the county property and all these other things, that’s part of the mediation. There should just be agreement that we’re going to mediate,” Vogt said. “These are all mediation-able items. The result has to be unanimous by all parties.”
Deputy Mayor Chris Brewer said the document that the city received after its counter offer didn’t address the city’s concerns and vouched for the pre-meeting to set parameters on mediation. While Chapman entertained the idea of a joint public meeting, Westley noted that such an event would be chaotic in establishing guidelines between the parties.
The port agreed to participate in mediation efforts during its Oct. 15 meeting and offered one revision, which the county incorporated into its final document. The draft mediation agreement was focused on the UGA, but Heaton said the port was interested in including everything within the municipal boundaries in the agreement.
To read more about the port’s thoughts on mediation, visit https://tinyurl.com/mwvvscnh. For more information on the city’s thoughts on the draft mediation agreement, visit https://tinyurl.com/sm2jvnvv.
