Members of the Mossyrock City Council met for their final regular meeting of the year on Wednesday, Dec. 17, and discussed a number of agenda items, including an update to the city’s comprehensive plan and various improvements at Klickitat Prairie Park.
The meeting was also the first full meeting attended by newly appointed Mossyrock City Councilor Ronald Lindgren, who was sworn in last month to a vacancy on the council following the resignation of former Councilor Craig Byrum due to health issues on Aug. 3.
Before that, Mossyrock Mayor Randall Sasser started the meeting by thanking Mossyrock Public Works Department staff for their flood mitigation work, which recently proved to be fairly effective amid an early December atmospheric river event that brought flooding to various parts of Western Washington.
“I really commend what public works has done. Because, to my knowledge, as long as I’ve been here as mayor, this is the first year we’ve not had an emergency where we had to worry about the lift stations in any shape or form,” Sasser said. “Also, the flooding on Isbell (Road) was considerably less than it has been in the past. We contribute that to one of the culverts that we put on the entrance to the south side of Klickitat Park to allow that water to flow easier to the creek.”
He added all of the city’s storm drains had been recently cleaned, which helped deal with the heavy rainfall. Plans are in the works to add more culverts on Isbell to further improve stormwater drainage.
However, one problem they did see with the recent flood event did cause some blockages in culverts and drains — apples from trees in Klickitat Prairie Park.
“There have been people who like to take the apples off the apple trees and put them in the drain. And then those go down, and we had a screen at the end of the line that goes into Klickitat Creek to keep the critters … from going back up the line. So we had the screen there, then the apples backfilled the screen, so the water couldn’t get out,” Sasser said. “I went down into the park before going to work one day, and I saw water shooting up in the air, coming out of one of the catch basins, because there was so much pressure.”
The apple trees at Klickitat Prairie Park aren’t just catching the ire of public works staff who have to clear blocked storm drains. Mossyrock Planning Commission and Parks Board Chair Marcia Manley explained the parks board is actually in favor of removing the apple trees altogether.
According to Manley, the apple trees in the park were actually donated years ago by Kaija’s Garden and Pet in Chehalis.
“I don’t think they would care if we cut them (down), and so the park board is supporting that,” Manley said.
Sasser added he supported removing them, as apparently people have also been putting apples in the park’s toilets. Manley suggested mirroring the neighboring City of Morton, which she said has a list of trees both native to the region and capable of withstanding climate change that developers are allowed to plant.
On top of trying to prevent the existing toilets at Klickitat Prairie Park from being clogged up by apples, Sasser stated plans are also in the works to pursue grant funding to construct additional bathrooms at the park, as Manley and the parks board have also been discussing how to get more people to visit the park during the summer.
One idea Manley had was music in the park events, which many other municipalities in the county hold at their public parks.
“Somebody said, ‘Well then you have to have a beer garden.’ I said, ‘Well that’s a money maker for the city. I’d volunteer to go help,’” Manley said.
Klickitat Prairie Park is set up well for small concerts, as an amphitheater already exists where bands performed during Mossyrock’s Mexican Independence Day celebrations and the annual Mossyrock Blueberry Festival — which also features a beer garden.
“The other thing we could do is really try to get a push for people to use the park during the summer time. Then get a head count and put in for an RCO (Washington state Recreation and Conservation Office) grant for more bathrooms,” Sasser said. “We got two there now, if we could have four more, that would take care of all those small events that we need.”
Manley added a local resident who has designed other parks in the past has offered consultant advice on park improvements for free, and she also planned on reaching out to The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation to see if she could get the results of an archeological study the Tribe had conducted on the park and surrounding area.
“We don’t have a copy of that (study) in the office that we could find, so I think that we’ll reach out to them and see if they happen to have that,” Manley said.
As for the update to Mossyrock’s comprehensive plan, the council approved the draft to be sent off to state officials for final review. Once it passes the state’s check, it will be sent back to the council for final approval.
Municipalities in Washington state are required to keep a comprehensive plan in accordance with the state’s Growth Management Act — and city staff must periodically update the plans in order to remain eligible for state grant funding.
Comprehensive plans establish a general direction over a 20-year period for development, including guidelines for land use, housing requirements, capital facilities, utilities, parks and recreation, transportation, economic development and climate resiliency. Mossyrock’s last comprehensive plan update was completed in 2021.
While minor changes were outlined in red throughout a draft document made available at the Dec. 17 meeting in virtually every section of the comprehensive plan, one section was tabbed for removal: Tribal Planning, which “establishes a framework for respectful, voluntary coordination with federally recognized tribes in accordance with state law. While no tribal reservation lands currently lie within the Mossyrock boundary, this element acknowledges that federally recognized tribes may hold treaty rights or have an interest in lands within the region, including historically ceded territories.”
According to the notes in the draft, it was recommended to remove “this section in its entirety as it is not required and no other city whose comprehensive plan was reviewed included it.”
