Council OK's garden in park, forgives loan

Members of the Cathlamet Town Council on Monday gave approval to a proposal to site a community garden in Erickson Park.

Wahkiakum County's Health and Human Services Department is proposing the garden. Representative Kelly Guest said it would provide a site for people to raise vegetables, and it would involve youth in creating and maintaining the project.

Council members approved a draft memorandum of understanding, and Town Attorney Tom Doumit said he would pass it to county officials for their approval.

Guest said she wants to start tilling the garden as soon as county officials approve the agreement. The agreement wasn't on their agenda for the county commission's Tuesday meeting, so action may come next week.

In other business:

--The council voted unanimously to forgive a $20,666 loan to the Cathlamet Fire Department.

The fire department took the loan when it built its new fire hall and planned to repay it through donations. Funds have been slow to come, however, and the council has extended the loan twice.

Assistant Fire Chief Fred Johnson said an alternative would be for the fire department to pay down the loan and have the council refinance it.

Council members said they saw advantages to ending the loan.

"We have an audit coming up, and the auditor has said they would like us to get it off the books," said Councilor Bob Rendler.

"We should be up front with the taxpayers," said Councilor David Goodroe. "My real feeling is that the fire department should keep their money and we should write it off."

His motion to forgive the loan was seconded and passed unanimously.

"Thank you," Johnson said.

--Engineer Ken Alexander reported that contractors have essentially completed two projects, a seismic retrofit of City Hall and installation of new water mains along Columbia Street and SR 4.

His firm, Gray & Osborne Engineers, is working on design documents for the town's new wastewater treatment plant.

Alexander, Mayor George Wehrfritz and some other town officials met Monday with representatives of federal funding agencies to see what could be done to lower the town's funding for the new plant.

Alexander said the engineers would review projected costs to see how much lower they are than estimates made before the current recession.