Budget writers kill "IWOW" intersection project
LCC's $40 million voc. ed. building also omitted from state spending plans
This story has been updated to reflect brief comments from Lower Columbia College President Chris Bailey about the lack of funding for LCC’s vocational education building.
Longview took two major gut punches as legislators stripped away or denied about $123 million in funding for local projects during budget negotiations in Olympia this week.
A transportation budget the Legislature will vote on Saturday shifted all money from the Industrial Way/Oregon Way (IWOW) project to a rail separation project on U.S. 12 in Aberdeen.
This will kill the Longview project, which has been plagued by skyrocketing cost estimates and design problems but is considered essential to relieving congestion and promoting development in the city’s industrial core.
Also this past week, negotiations for the capital budget failed to include $40 million for Lower Columbia College’s new vocational education building, another key element in the area’s hopes to attract new employers. The omission will delay the project at least a year, maybe two.
However, a number of other projects in the region did get funded, including $14 million to renovate two hatcheries, $2 million to replace the irrigation system at the Mint Valley Golf Course in Longview and $7.9 million for roads and visitor center improvements at Cape Disappointment State Park.
State Sen. Jeff Wilson, a Longview Republican, and state Rep. Jim Walsh, R- Aberdeen, acted in concert to reallocate $83 million in remaining IWOW money, said state Sen. Ann Rivers, a Clark County Republican.
About $72.7 million will be shifted to the Aberdeen project and about $6.2 million will go to the South Kelso rail crossing effort, according to state budget documents.
Walsh and Wilson both represent the 19th District, which includes Longview and a broad swath of Southwest Washington.
In a rare show of anger for a fellow party member, Rivers accused Wilson of duplicity, pretending to support IWOW but now acting to kill it.
“When it come to Jeff, logic ceases to exist,” said Rivers, who is the city of Longview’s community development director.
Wilson did not return repeated requests for comment Friday afternoon, when the proposed transportation budget was made public.
In addition to serving as a legislator, Wilson is a Port of Longview commissioner. However, the port has no official position about the project, even though the intersection is an entry point into the port.
The Legislature allocated $85 million for the intersection work in 2015, and overall the state had committed about $100 million. The amount shifted to other projects is what is left after studies and planning for IWOW.
Rivers said that it’s unlikely the Legislature will ever again fund a major transportation project with the gas tax, meaning that the community likely will have to find other sources to finance the work.
Originally slated to cost $85 million, IWOW now has an estimated price tag of $230 million. The current plan would raise the entire intersection above the BNSF Railway tracks that cross both roads.
I have criticized the state’s design for the intersection, but there’s no denying that congestion there needs to be addressed. Peak-time travel is forecast to increase 33 percent — to 4,000 vehicles an hour — within 20 years, according to the Washington Department of Transportation.
The other blow to Longview will delay Lower Columbia College’s plans to construct its long-sought vocational education building.
The money had been in the Senate version of the capital budget but not the House version. It was left out of the compromise version released Friday.
Rivers was crushed by the failure to get the vocational building funded. She accused Republicans who control all the legislative seats that represent Cowlitz County of failing to advocate for it.
Even though Rivers is a member of the committee that negotiated the compromise budget, she could not explain how the funding got left out.
“I am absolutely mystified by it,” she continued. “It is such an important project for this community. I don’t know why there was no advocacy for this project. I know that for a fact. ”
In her Longview job, she tries to attract business to the community, and job training is an essential component of that, she said.
“The businesses I am trying to bring to Longview need … workers to be trained to industry standards. That is how important this (LCC project) is, and there was no advocacy for that,” Rivers said.
The 46,000-square-foot building would replace four old structures and house the welding, machining, manufacturing, information technology and computer science programs.
LCC’s project had been given money to design the building two years ago. In the normal course of events construction would be funded in the upcoming budget cycle, said George Raiter, who stepped down as a college trustee last year.
The vocational building ranked 15th on the state’s list of community college capital project priorities. It was the lowest-ranking project included in Gov. Jay Inslee’s capital budget request. (The ranking system is meant to take politics out of the funding process.) House budget negotiators, though, held firm on funding only the first 13 projects, leaving No. 15 LCC out.
Lower Columbia College President Chris Bailey said Monday he’s is disappointed the project failed to make the cut, though be said he is confident it will get funded in two years or perhaps even in a supplemental budget next year. However, he is worried that inflation could push up the cost.
Bailey said that Sen. Wilson and state Rep. Ed Orcutt- R-Kalama, were supportive of the college’s request.
State Sen. John Braun, a Centralia Republican who represents parts of Cowlitz County, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He is a key budget writer for the GOP caucus.
The compromise capital budget does include $1.3 million for projects at LCC’s David Story Field.
Here’s a quick rundown of other projects in the 19th District portion of the Lower Columbia area of Southwest Washington that made it into the capital budget:
* $2 million for a new irrigation system at the city-owned Mint Valley Golf Course in Longview.
$1 million for playground improvement at Cloney Park in west Longview
$2.6 million to restore the Beaver Creek Hatchery near Cathlamet
$1.65 million for Delameter Creek fish passage at Garlock Road near Castle Rock
$11.5 million to renovate the Naselle Hatchery in Pacific County
$295,000 for a fish project on the west fork of the Grays River
$96,000 for a Cathlamet skate park
$155,000 for a playground at Windermere Park in Longview
$750,000 for the Longview Public Library
$46,000 for fencing and lighting at the multipurpose courts at Tam O’Shanter Park in Kelso
$86,000 for the Cathlamet Waterfront Park.
$165,000 for Kelso School District Renovation projects
$575,000 to replace the roof of the Kelso Train Depot
$256,000 for the North County Recreational Association Youth sports in Castle Rock.
$340,000 for wastewater treatment upgrades in Long Beach.
$250,000 for a youth emergency center in Longview
$89,000 for the Three Rivers trail at Cape Disappointment.
$130,000 for coastal dune restoration at Leadbetter State Park.
$1.8 million each to Wahkiakum and Pacific counties to buy timberland.
This list does not include any money directed to the Kalama, Woodland or Toutle areas, which are in the 20th District. A project list for that district was unavailable to me Friday.