Editor’s note: See previously published coverage of the Port of Centralia Commission and Chehalis City Council debates by clicking here and here.
A bevy of hot-button topics, including the moratorium on warehouses and distribution centers, homelessness and budget pressures, were explored by five candidates for three Centralia City Council seats during the election debate hosted and organized by The Chronicle on Oct. 8 at Centralia College’s TransAlta Commons.
Norm Chapman and Lisa Striedinger, District 1; Ray Chapman-Wilson and Leah Sisemore, District 2; and Kevin Curtis, District 3, took the stage to answer questions from moderators and chairmen of their respective Lewis County political parties, Republican Greg Rohr and Democrat Zac Eckstein, as well as from the audience.
After opening remarks, the candidates jumped right into the controversial issues. Curtis, who was the only candidate in attendance for his race, was not asked questions by the moderators as he provided a brief opening statement and answered audience questions about the state of the city’s infrastructure and economic growth.
Moratorium on large distribution centers, warehouses
Only one of the five candidates, Chapman, was on the council when it voted unanimously Sept. 9 to declare an emergency temporary moratorium on the development of distribution centers and warehouses 250,000 square feet or larger.
The move received backlash from Lewis County commissioners, Port of Centralia commissioners and local residents who argued that the measure hurts economic growth. City councilors and staff cited truck traffic congestion along Harrison Avenue as one of the primary reasons for the six-month halt while they continue work on their comprehensive plan.
Although he voted to approve the ordinance, Chapman called the moratorium a “sad failure” and “a failure of the system.” He repeated his concern regarding a lack of collaboration between the city, the port and the county.
“There’s lots of very excellent, good people with lots of bright ideas. They never really get together,” Chapman said. “When you don’t get together, then it creates the problems downstream. Those problems could have been handled a long time ago if we just sit down, put the egos aside and just fix the issues. I think that’s been paramount in some of the problems that we’ve had in Centralia. We’re just not on the same page.”
Striedinger also called the moratorium a “sad failure” and said everyone involved needs a seat at the table, including the community, and more reciprocity.
“In the end, the city council really does work for the community, and we are really there to bring our community better opportunities,” she said. “We might not always be able to do exactly what the community suggests, but those are the people that are living on the streets that we are making the choices for. In my opinion, it was not collaborated correctly, and more discussions could have been held, but if I was on the council in that moment, I would have reached out to the community and had a little bit more community input and actually listened to the community input.”
Sisemore, who attended the Sept. 9 council meeting and voiced her disagreement with the moratorium, said she did so not because she opposes smart growth but because she disagreed with the steps to get there.
“Smart growth does start with clear planning, infrastructure readiness and accountability and not blanket clauses that can stall progress and send mixed messages,” Sisemore, a former Centralia City Council member, said. “I believe in the proactive solutions between the port, Centralia and the county.”
Chapman-Wilson noted that one of the city’s top-listed strategic priorities for 2025-2026 is to encourage a unified vision and strategy with the Port of Centralia, Lewis County, Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce and the Lewis County Economic Alliance. He indicated that perhaps that hadn’t been the case in the midst of the moratorium.
“It sounds like somebody was caught off guard somewhere, and so the initiation of the project was not carried through properly,” Chapman-Wilson said. “You all have to come together and meet and work it out.”
Homelessness and public drug use
The moderators asked the candidates about the specific strategies they would deploy to address homelessness and public drug use in Centralia.
Striedinger said she has worked as a homeless advocate and outreach worker for the last nine years and experienced homelessness herself in 2016. She advocated for a treatment-first approach.
“There were the systems in this community to help me because they saw me as helpable, but if you’re not seen as helpable, then that’s where the story comes in,” she said. “The people that don’t want the treatment, let’s find out why. Not everybody wants to get out of homelessness. But I do believe that we can direct the services and navigate the people to the correct places. They are people first. It’s not a lose situation. There’s a lot of winners.”
Chapman credited Striedinger’s expertise in homelessness and said that if he was elected to maintain his seat, he would pick her brain and use her as an advisor of sorts. He divided the homeless issue into two categories: unhoused and transients.
“You’ve got the homeless or unhoused, and then you’ve got the transients that are coming through town. I think those are mixed together,” Chapman said. “Those transients that are passing through town have no ownership in Centralia or the area, and they don’t care about our laws or the people in Centralia, and they’re causing problems. Then it’s grouped together where all people that are homeless are causing problems, and that’s not the case.”
Chapman indicated that the city council should support social service agencies and resources such as public transportation and homeless shelters.
Chapman-Wilson advocated for listening to what he called the “helpers,” including faith-based organizations and other nonprofits, and following their lead. He said a treatment-first and shelter-first approach is more fiscally efficient than incarcerating people.
Sisemore said she has worked on homelessness for the last decade and that the city needs a response that “combines compassion with clear expectations.” She backed the idea of pathways that help people out of homelessness, not keeping them in it.
“They deserve real help, not empty programs. I am somebody who’s experienced each one of those, and I know that with help, we can have success,” she said. “I don’t support funding organizations locally or initiatives that don’t show outcomes, whether that’s housing placements, successful treatment connections or stable employment. Every program that the city partners with needs to have performance metrics.”
Budget pressures
As the city deals with budget strains, the moderators asked the council candidates how they would balance fiscal responsibility with community needs.
Chapman suggested that Centralia has made bad financial decisions over the years where it was involved with too many projects and didn’t have enough funds to support its vision.
“Centralia is kind of playing catch up,” he said. “We’re in this transitory stage right now where new housing is being built, new people are moving in and spending tax monies and revenues will be going up. It’s a hard time right now. It’s a lean budget. Just because we have 25 checks and a checkbook doesn’t mean we write 25 checks. Public input is very important when it comes to budgets and attending city council (meetings) and public workshops. The city needs to be involved in that so they see where their tax money is going.”
Striedinger cited her experience as a nonprofit owner and a small business owner, explaining that she sees the value in a balanced budget. She said the most important things in the city, decided through conversations with stakeholders and other community members, must be funded first.
“I think that’s important when we see our community and what the priorities are and where the priorities lie. In a budget, sometimes we have to cut things that may not be as important as the others,” she said.
Sisemore said maintaining essential services needs to be the core focus for the city, adding that the answer is not to panic and not raising taxes. She proposed a tax and spending accountability review board so that taxpayers in the city can see a “transparent outlook” and what the city is doing. She vowed to treat Centralia’s money like it is coming from her own household.
“There is money available without taxing our residents, and I am committed to voting no on tax increases and finding innovative revenue opportunities,” Sisemore said. “There’s a lot of innovative people and visionaries in our community, and I will communicate with them and leave that work to them so that we can make decisions based on that.”
Chapman-Wilson said looking for grants will be a priority of his if he is elected to the city council. Additionally, he wants to keep services in the local economy rather than contracting out to other jurisdictions. He listed sports tourism, pedestrian attractions and the skate park as potential revenue options to explore.
