With construction currently halted on the United Learning Center (ULC), the City of Centralia is considering providing funding to get work back underway.
At its Tuesday, April 8, meeting, the Centralia City Council will consider approval of $1.5 million in funding for the ULC from the city budget’s general fund.
To account for the spending in the budget, city staff have proposed retaining up to $1.5 million of Centralia’s real estate excise tax funds previously allocated for other projects, according to the council’s agenda report.
The council meeting will be held starting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday inside the council chambers at Centralia City Hall, located at 118 W. Maple St. in downtown Centralia.
City councilors and others toured the construction site in downtown Centralia on Friday with United Way of Lewis County Executive Director Annie Oien.
While construction of the United Learning Center — just across from city hall along North Pearl Street — finally began last May, it was temporarily halted nearly a year later as the project’s partners await final National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) approval in order to receive federal funding, according to Oien.
“What we’re up against is just completing that NEPA,” Oien said while giving a tour of the ULC’s construction site to several members of the Centralia City Council on Friday, April 4. “We’ve made significantly more progress significantly faster than we ever anticipated having.”
Earlier this year, Centralia City Manager Michael Thomas stated that some of the ULC’s federal funding might have been in jeopardy following President Donald Trump’s inauguration and the subsequent budget and program cuts made by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Since then, Oien has been in contact with the offices of both U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray along with U.S. Rep Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s office concerning DOGE’s work and the federal funding — which, as of last week, is still secure.
“That has been an incredible support and advocacy at the federal level from our federal representatives. Patty Murray’s office, Maria Cantwell’s office went to bat for us with national agencies,” Oien said. “... The funds are in place, it just has to do with when we can access them. We just need to have access to cash flow to get our contractors back and building.”
Oien added that state Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, is also working on getting an additional $500,000 of state funding secured in the state Legislature’s upcoming budget. That funding is appropriated through Cascade Community Healthcare, a partner in the ULC, in a bipartisan capital budget proposal put forward in the House.
As for what funding has been secured so far — outside organization donations in the past, including a sizable one from TransAlta — Abbarno helped secure $1.95 million in state funding last year for the ULC, and a total of $4 million in federal funding was secured through efforts of Murray, Cantwell and Gluesenkamp Perez, as previously reported by The Chronicle.
The ULC is a collaborative early learning center project involving the City of Centralia, the United Way of Lewis County, the Boys & Girls Club of Lewis County, Cascade Community Health, Discover! Children’s Museum and the Bezos Academy.
Inside the ULC will be several sections, one for the Discover! Children’s Museum, one for the Bezos Academy, one for the Boys & Girls Club and eventually one for Cascade Community Health.
Oien told those in the tour that, once the facility is open, the goal is to have the ULC provide supplemental schooling for Centralia area families, particularly those living in or near poverty and to children of all ages.
Among the Centralia city councilors in attendance during Friday’s tour were Councilors Max Vogt, Adrianna Garibay and Sarah Althauser and Centralia Deputy Mayor Chris Brewer, along with other project partners.
For more information, read the council’s agenda report on the city’s website at https://tinyurl.com/3mn68mu4.
