County sharing capital improvement funds

Wahkiakum County officials are on track to approve as much as $200,000 in capital improvements to infrastructure in Wahkiakum County in 2011.

The county adopted a resolution in 2004 that place a tax of .25 of a percent on real estate sales, and the fund has grown to $750,000, Treasurer Paula Holloway said Tuesday. The ordinance creating the fund limits its use to infrastructure and capital projects, but it may be shared among county government and junior taxing districts.

This year, commissioners established a committee, headed by Commissioner Lisa Marsyla, to create a process for junior taxing districts to apply for the funds.

On Tuesday, Marsyla and Holloway presented the proposed process and asked the board of commissioners to commit to appropriate up to $100,000 from the fund for small taxing districts in 2011.

Marsyla said the criterion which the committee created included points for having matching funds, for becoming self-sustaining, for the kind of service or facility that would be provided, and so on.

The committee will review the funding requests, and the board of commissioners will approve them.

"We feel like it's a promise to the residents that we'd make the money available to them," Holloway said.

This is the time to put the money out there, Marsyla said, so that the entities could put the projects in their 2011 budgets.

Marsyla moved to make up to $100,000 available to small taxing districts, and Commissioner Dan Cothren seconded the motion.

Commissioner Blair Brady suggested the board wait till budget time and then see what the projects are.

"I have concerns about committing to spend money before we know what we're spending it on," he said. "I would like to wait till budget time. However, I'm only one voice."

He called for the vote, however, and the motion passed without apparent opposition.

Holloway said the fund generates about $25,000 a year when there aren't sales of large pieces of property.

However, when timberlands are bought and sold as investments, the fund grows fast. Holloway said one sale in 2005 generated $228,000; a 2007 sale generated $150,000, and a 2009 sale generated $200,000.