Julie McDonald Commentary: Car Tab Initiative Passage Puts Rush Road, Mickelson Parkway Projects on Hold

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If you’ve taken the Rush Road Exit 72 from I-5, you’ve probably grappled with trying to turn left while cars continue streaming from both directions and vehicles back up behind you.

The state Department of Transportation set aside a little more than $1 million to relieve problems at the Rush Road interchange, according to Lewis County Manager Erik Martin, and about $750,000 for the Mickelson Parkway project in Winlock.

But that money has been put on hold because of I-976, an initiative approved by voters in November to roll back car-tab fees to $30.

“The Washington DOT has put a hold on all projects that have not started yet, so this includes Rush Road,” Martin told the Lewis County Republican Club Thursday. “So we’ve got almost two million dollars of state money that was going to come to the county that’s now tied up.”

Fifty-three percent of Washington voters approved I-976, but then King County, the city of Seattle and a handful of other organizations filed a lawsuit alleging that it violates the state constitution and misled voters about its effects. Lower car-tab fees were supposed to go into effect Thursday, but King County Superior Court granted an injunction to give local governments more time to file arguments. A divided Washington State Supreme Court upheld the injunction, although three justices said an initiative passed by voters is presumed valid and the state Attorney General’s office argued that the injunction harms public confidence in the democratic process by delaying implementation of a “presumptively constitutional” initiative.

Uncertain what might happen, Martin said, the DOT is holding onto the money it has. Officials delayed more than 70 highway and transit projects that haven’t broken ground yet and plan to trim $478 million from the budget.

But Lewis County is in good shape beyond that $2 million loss, he said.

“Our property taxes and the gas tax we get from the state are enough to take care of our roads in a reasonable way,” Martin said.

Martin, who has been Lewis County’s manager for sixteen months, recapped the efforts of One Lewis County to create a home rule charter, creation of a Blue Ribbon task force to review county management, and its recommendation to hire a county manager to oversee day-to-day operations.

He graduated from Washington State University in civil engineering and worked in private practice and at Pierce County before accepting a job in Lewis County Public Works Department a decade ago. He had moved up to director and finished his masters’ in business administration when tapped for the county administrator job.

“It was fortunate for me that I really, really liked the administrative side of what I did, especially as Public Works director,” Martin said. “I enjoyed the budgeting part and enjoyed the human resources part.”

He serves at the will of the county commissioners to manage the county’s departments and implement policy. Commissioners establish the budgets and determine the number of employees for all departments. He oversees all appointed department heads and serves as liaison between other elected officials and county commissioners.

“They have one point of contact they can go to now to talk about those things and we can try to solve it together,” Martin said.

With “a 50,000-foot view” of all the departments, Martin said he can look for efficiencies and see where employees are duplicating efforts. He also provides operational continuity in standardizing the way department heads and elected officials provide budget requests, handle personnel issues, and submit reports. He advises commissioners as they make policy decisions, such as how changes would be implemented and whether they comply with state and local regulations.



“What they want to do is up to them,” Martin said. “I will help them implement what it is they want to do.”

Martin also serves as the main point of contact for the public. If he can’t answer a question, he can find the person who knows the answers.

Hiring a county manager freed county commissioners for other work, such as lobbying and interacting with the public.

Martin discussed upcoming county projects.

Thanks to 20th District Rep. Ed Orcutt of Kalama, the Legislature set aside $50 million for developing a new I-5 interchange at the north end of Lewis County or south end of Thurston County in 2025 to provide better access to the Port of Centralia and the Industrial Park at TransAlta, moving heavy truck traffic off Harrison Avenue and perhaps onto Reynolds Road.  The county is doing preliminary work such as permitting.

Martin is administrator for both the Cowlitz River Basin and the Chehalis River Basin Flood Control Zone districts, with the Chehalis River and plans for the airport levee and an upriver water retention facility (or dam) taking up a lot of time. He helped facilitate the Skookumchuck Wind Energy project straddling the Lewis-Thurston county border.

“That was a priority for the commissioners, and I knew that somebody needed to kind of take it and run with it,” Martin said. “So I’m really proud of the fact that project is under construction right now and hopefully will be completed and operating before next summer.”

He’s also worked with the 9-1-1 regionalization study, and more with the county’s likely acquisition of the beleaguered Onalaska Water-Sewer District 5 at the Birchfield development.

Countywide community-based strategic planning efforts are under way now to identify what the public sees in the county’s future, including possible issues and spending needs. The work will ramp up in January and finish probably in May, before preparation of the 2021 county budget.

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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at chaptersoflife1999@gmail.com.