Longview at 100: An unfulfilled dream

City has much potential, but it must reclaim its own destiny, stop beating itself up

Late in 1978, when I was completing my work on a master’s degree and looking for a newspaper job in the Pacific Northwest, a journalism professor gave me some blunt advice. 

The Longview Daily News was an excellent, family owned newspaper where I would learn a lot.  But the city of Longview itself was a grim mill town, said the professor, whose name and academic affiliation I forgot long ago.

So when I showed up here for a job interview on a rainy, pulp-stenched December day, I told TDN Managing Editor Bob Gaston I expected to stay here 18 months before moving on. He hired me anyway despite my lack of experience, sensing that I had enough fire in my belly to take a risk on.

Friday night, nearly 44 years later, I sat in the Monticello Hotel for a gala dinner that celebrated Longview’s centennial.  As I took in the singing, dancing, speeches and Georgian symmetry of the hotel’s elegant banquet hall, I again asked why I have remained here for nearly half of the city’s history.

There were times early in my career that I considered leaving. The reasons I planted roots here are many, including the eruption of a volcano up the road that presented a story I couldn’t leave. But there were two main forces that kept me here.

One: I found that Longview, contrary to that professor’s advice, was a livable, hospitable, generous, tight-knit small community with many nice neighborhoods,  tree-lined streets and a world-class urban park. It had a sense of self and a destiny bequeathed by its founder, timber baron Robert Alexander Long. Residents were conscious of the town’s founding history, which was not so distant back then. There was much concern for the local commonweal and a sense of optimism that the community would flourish despite hardships it had overcome.

Two:  I found that TDN was an integral part of creating that sense of community. People read the paper, communicated, grieved, celebrated and grumbled through it. No paper in the state was better-read.

As the city enters its second century, my sense of optimism has waned because the potency  of both of these elements has diminished. And, for many reasons, the town has lost much control of its own destiny.

To be sure, Longview and the surrounding area still have great potential. We often hear about the abundance of available industrial land, convergence of transportation networks and presence of a willing workforce.

But just quickly review what’s happened in the last 40 years: Industrial payrolls have dropped precipitously for economic and environmental reasons. White collar jobs in the county now outnumber blue collar jobs 2 to 1 — a fact that would shock anyone who grew up during the city’s earlier decades. A third of all jobs were in manufacturing — the area’s traditional golden egg — when I moved here. That ratio has dropped to one in six.

The area is not attracting young professionals. Many of those who work here commute from homes in Clark County, and many children who grow up here leave and never return. The brain drain and youth exodus have aged our town, depleting it of vitality and vision, and our undereducated population is a drag on business recruitment.

All this economic upheaval has nearly 9% of our county population in poverty.

Many school children don’t have stable homes.  We have a homeless crisis because we lack affordable housing (despite a recent uptick in construction) and, like nearly every community in America, rampant drug addiction.  This reflects a loss of hope and means.

Vigorous economic development efforts have scored some successes, but recruitment of new industries is shackled by environmental groups and indifference — if not downright hostility —  from Olympia.

But what bothers me more is the kind of malaise and hard-heartedness that has set in. I have never seen this community so divided as it is now, with some elements actively working to increase hostilities. ( I can’t believe, for example, what I hear people say about the homeless in what is purported to be a strongly churched community.) We need to restore civility to public dialogue. We can start by tuning out those who sow discord for their own aggrandizement.

I don’t see much vision of the kind that prompted Mr. Long to build Lake Sacajawea, R.A. Long High School and the Longview Public Library. Instead there seems to be a lot of defeatism. This town beats itself up so much.

We need more focus on quality-of-life matters to bring young people back. Perhaps we need a community brainstorming session to come up with ideas to  make the town more exciting and livable. We can build off Squirrelfest, the lake concerts and other recently conceived community events. Here are a few simple ones to prime the pump:

Plant a world-class, paid-entry garden at the old West Longview sewage lagoons to rival the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia. (I owe thus one partly to my friend Brian Magnuson.)

Hold a mini and widely publicized “Tour de Longview” triathlon that involves Lake Sacajawea, the city’s drainage ditches and west end roads. Use this to create a biking, boating and walking circuit throughout the lowlands. The basics already are there.

Sponsor movie evenings and afternoons at the Columbia Theatre to show vintage and family films, and close the adjoining streets off for vendors, artists, musicians and cooks to show off their wares.

Create an artist- and musician-in-residence program at Lower Columbia College, with a proviso that the artists engage with the community often.

I still think — in spite of what my economic development friends say — that redeveloping parts of the Barlow Point or old Reynolds Metals Co. properties into apartment or condo complexes could bring a rush of young people into the community. (Alcoa’s sloth with cleanup and apparent high asking price for the old aluminum property are a problem.)  Even if new residents commute to work elsewhere, people tend to care more about the communities where they reside than those where they work. 

We simply must make our many waterfront properties more open to residential recreation and habitation to make the town more attractive. Think about it: Despite the major presence of water, Longview has no boat marina except for the limited and private Longview Yacht Club. 

On a more macro scale, local officials should partner with other Washington rural communities to develop a high-profile legislative proposal to encourage economic development through tax incentives and public works projects. The regulatory review process in this state also is a disaster. It needs to be quicker, more predictable and less political. 

Next year’s upcoming gubernatorial campaign presents a key opportunity to get candidates to visit here and listen to our concerns. We should demand their attention.

Finally, to my concerns about TDN, which was founded in 1923 along with the city. It grieves me to see how Lee Enterprises, its owner, has emasculated the once magnificent daily where I worked 41 years. Time and again people tell me how sad they are about its decline and what its loss means for the town. 

I feel bad about piling on the criticism, but something must be done to re-establish a viable news organization here. It’s possible, for example, to establish a community-based, online newspaper. It takes some doing, but it is  happening in other communities as newspapers close by the score every year.  That leads to divisions, loss of community cohesion and, over time, an increase in corruption.

I fell in love with TDN and Longview a long time ago. That professor was flat wrong in his assessment of the city., and its centennial is cause for celebration that it survived  floods, volcanic eruptions and economic calamities.  

However, it’s also a time for some honest self-assessment that rekindles the vision and energy of is founder when, already 68 years old,  he moved his giant company to the mouth of the Cowlitz River 100 years ago.