The pre-flood practice of frantically filling sandbags in the empty parking lot at the corner of Maple and North Pearl streets in Centralia may soon become unnecessary. The City of Centralia, as announced by manager Rob Hill on Friday morning, has purchased a sandbag machine.
“What these things can put out, I can't remember the number per hour, but it was impressive,” Hill said before adding with a laugh, “Hopefully we don’t need it today. We don’t have it yet but it should be coming pretty soon.”
The new machine was one of a few pieces of news announced Friday morning during the monthly Lewis County Mayors Meeting at the county courthouse in Chehalis. The city also purchased a trailer that will allow transport of the sandbag machine for other municipalities. The device will be the first of its kind permanently housed in Lewis County.
Over the last year, Lewis County Public Works has teamed with the juvenile detention center in a program for sandbag filling, which has so far filled a shed with extra sandbags, said County Commissioner Lindsey Pollock.
Though it’s hard to follow the downright thrilling news of a sandbag machine, the following is a roundup of other notable topics from the meeting:
Mayors Talk Recent Ban on Homeless Camps
After all three county commissioners voted to approve an ordinance banning homeless encampments on Lewis County land last week, Commissioner Sean Swope asked the mayors if they had followup questions from the hourslong meeting, which included dozens of resident testimonies. Critics called on the county to address the lack of housing, not to sweep camps.
Centralia Mayor Kelly Smith Johnston was the first to speak, beginning with: “I’m not sure where to start.”
Smith Johnston has been a vocal proponent of studying the countywide housing crisis and has touted Centralia’s efforts so far in analyzing next steps to adequately house the growing population. She told the mayors about her research into a plan that differs from the housing-first method of addressing homelessness, which she said has been Lewis County’s approach so far.
Calling it “Functional Zero,” Smith Johnston encouraged the county to adopt a plan that lists unhoused people by name, with specific suggested plans to address their needs. Considering the size of the homeless population in the area, the method would be able to identify whether housing, health care or anything else should be the priority approach for an individual or a family, she said.
“From where I’m sitting, it doesn’t feel like we have an agreement on what our metric is that’s going to assess success around this,” Smith Johnston said, adding later, “We really need, I think, to have an agreement that the meaningful approach here is to move people off of a list where they need shelter, to a place where they have that and it’s successful and sustainable.”
Despite Pollock and her seatmates’ votes in favor of the ordinance banning homeless encampments on county land — which currently only gives unhoused residents one option, which is a night-by-night shelter in downtown Centralia that was only shifted into such a facility within the last few months — the commissioner supported Smith Johnston’s idea on Friday.
“That's a very good idea to be looking at the individual needs because there's not one massive group,” Pollock said. “We can’t just look at, ‘OK, folks are homeless, so they need to go to the night-by-night shelter and that’s the solution.’”
Public Health and Social Services Director Meja Handlen agreed the “Functional Zero” approach could be a “very great option to utilize and ensure coordination.”
One of the biggest issues Handlen said she sees now with the range of service providers for homeless people in the county is a lack of coordination — some are faith-based, some focus on health care and groups may or may not be grant-funded, she said. As of Nov. 1, the Salvation Army in Centralia took over the county’s coordinated entry housing program, Handlen said. She hopes this change will be a step toward teamwork between agencies.
Planned Growth Committee
Lewis County Community Development is looking ahead to 2025 when the entire county is mandated to update comprehensive plans, accounting for population growth. Starting this January, Senior Long-Range Planner Mindy Brooks asked cities to select representatives, preferably mayors, for a monthly planning meeting. Assessor Dianne Dorey recently stated the area was seeing growth in “every metric.” Brooks said later this winter, staff would have an estimated population forecast for the coming decades that cities and county staff will need to dole out between communities. The data will also come with housing forecasts.
This process is set to begin on the first Wednesday in January at 1 p.m., but dates and times may change depending on availability of representatives.
“We need active participation,” said Community Development Director Lee Napier. “We also need to think about who should be there and getting commitment from all of you to send people.”
Mayor’s Roundtable
Before countywide projects are covered, mayors or present representatives from each city have the chance to make brief announcements.
From Napavine Mayor Shawn O'Neill, municipal leaders heard the city plans to partner with AT&T to establish a new phone tower. There is also potential for Napavine High School to partner with the telecommunications company for installation of new light poles at the football field in exchange for the poles serving as phone towers, O’Neill said.
Of note in Mossyrock, according to planning commission member Marcia Manley, one resident with several acres of property within the city limits is looking to establish a well for their cattle and field in order to offset costs. Manley said due to current ordinances in place, it’s unlikely the resident will be allowed to establish a new well, but the city is considering implementing a special rate package for agricultural uses.
“With the drought conditions they’ve been experiencing over the last two years and then progressing, they really need the extra water,” Manley said, adding later, “It made me realize that we’re all going to be looking at this in the future. We should have, if we’re a city or even a county, have ordinances in place that address those issues.”
