Sinkings and sailings

A key meeting about Longview fluoridation; beautifully restored library windows; MGPs vote against federal budget bill; and a bid to lock in tax property tax limit dies, for now

Beacon Hill Water and Sewer District to discuss joining Longview fluoride advisory vote; it should put this issue to rest

Beacon Hill Water and Sewer District meetings don’t normally get much public attendance. But the one starting at 3 p.m. Tuesday (March 18) likely will be different.

It will help determine the fate of a proposal to remove cavity-fighting fluoride from Longview’s drinking water.

The three-member board of supervisors will discuss a proposal before the Longview City Council to hold an advisory vote of water customers. Councilman Erik Halvorson is championing fluoride removal against the near-unanimous advice of local dentists and doctors.

The district owns about 17 percent of the city’s Mint Farm Water Treatment Plant and sends water from there to a broad area that includes Beacon Hill, Lexington, Ostrander, Lone Oak/Sunset Way and Columbia Heights areas of unincorporated Longview, and the Mount Brynion/Williams Finney road area of Kelso.

Longview cannot change operations of the Mint Farm plant without Beacon Hill’s approval.

Despite lopsided public comment against removing fluoride, the City Council on February 27 voted 4-3 to hold an advisory vote but asked staff to check if Beacon Hill is open to the idea. Depending on the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting, the council will decide at its first meeting in April whether to hold the advisory vote in November.

It’s time to stop wasting time and money on this issue. The Beacon Hill supervisors should listen to reason and science and stop this nonsense now.

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that has been added safely to U.S. drinking water supplies for eight decades to fight tooth decay. There is no evidence that fluoride causes neurological or other harm at the tiny amounts it is added to drinking water. Removing it would drive up tooth decay and costs for public health, especially among low-income children.

The Beacon Hill Sewer District is located at 1121 Westside Highway, Kelso.

See my previous stories about the issue on the Lower Columbia Currents substack page, or go to andrestepankowsky@substack.com

Longview library’s newly refurbished windows sparkle

The Longview Library is one of the city’s architectural and historical jewels, and now it glistens like one again.

The building’s arched windows have been restored with original glass and freshly painted muntins (the wood pieces that divide individual panes). They’ve been weatherized with an additional layer of glass for energy efficiency. The effect makes the facade of the building almost glow.

Window restoration was part of a $1.82 million project that also replaced the building’s HVAC system, which was clanking toward obsolescence and unable to keep the building cool in summers.

Costs fell short of the $2.1 million city estimate for the work, and it was financed partly with a $750,000 state Department of Commerce grant, said city Finance Director Lisa Wolff. Budget reserves paid the balance.

The library marks its 100th anniversary in April next year. Activities to celebrate its first century will be held throughout the year.

The building was dedicated on April 26, 1926, with speeches by city founder R.A. Long and Henry Suzzalo, president of the University of Washington. The university’s majestic Gothic-style library is named after Suzzalo.

Long and his wife donated $150,000 to build the library, an amount worth nearly $2.8 million today. (That’s what an online inflation calculator estimates. It seems certain that the library, even in its smaller original footprint, would cost far more than that today.)

Miss Helen Johns was the first librarian.

The original building was designed by architect Arch Torbitt in the Georgian style to match the design for the Longview Civic Center.

MGP fears budget bill will cut volcano work, VA benefits

The politics and fallout from the controversial “Continuing Resolution” budget bill that Congress passed last week are way too complicated and extensive to discuss here. However, the bill could have a bearing on Mount St. Helens-related expenditures in Southwest Washington.

The “CR,” as it is known, decreases funding levels for U.S. Geological Survey research (the amount was not immediately available) and decreases U.S. Army Corps of Engineers construction spending by $1.4 billion, a 44% decrease, according to the office of Southwest Washington Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

These agencies play pivotal roles in monitoring and responding to geologic hazards around the region. It’s not yet known how they will adjust to these reduced levels of spending, according to MGP’s office.

This legislation, according to MGP’s office, also cuts nearly $800 million from VA facility construction, does not protect funding levels for veterans homelessness, mental health, and addiction programs, and provides no advance appropriations for the Toxic Exposures Fund to avoid lapses in support for heroes suffering from service-connected illnesses.

MGP opposed the bill. (The sinking graphic is for the bill itself, not her vote.)

“My highest priority in Congress is to defend the interests of Southwest Washington – and the path of chaos and uncertainty today’s partisan CR presents is at best counterproductive and at worst empowers the most partisan members of Congress to have the most say in how our public dollars are spent,” she said in a statement.

There’s no comfort in Longview’s budget predicament

A proposal to lock in a property tax limit died at last week’s Longview City Council meeting before it could come up for a vote. That’s a good thing, but what its co-sponsor said afterward was disturbing.

Councilmen Keith Young and Erik Halvorson planned to seek an ordinance limiting the city to a 1% annual increase in property tax rates unless voters approve larger increases. It was a hedge against a bill in the Legislature that would increase the limit to 3%. The bill is sought by Washington cities because so many of many of them — including Longview — are in financial straits.

Young introduced a motion in support of the ordinance. But the measure was one vote short of the four needed to pass, because Councilwoman/Mayor Pro Tem Kalei LaFave said, without elaborating, that she wasn’t ready to support it. So Halvorson himself didn’t even second the motion, and it died.

Halvorson noted, though, that the council balanced the city’s 2025 and 2026 general fund budgets without raising property taxes at all. (Increasing the tax 1% would have raised an additional $101,300 each year.)

There is certainly nothing to crow about or take comfort from here.

The city balanced its budget by cutting its general fund by 10% — $3.73 million in 2025 and and $3.6 million in 2026. The cuts included eliminating 13 staff positions, including a 30-plus-year parks department employee. The council also had to raise city business and utility taxes and use $4.6 million in reserves.

The city faces a serious problem. Halvorson should not minimize it.