Attendees of the Mossyrock City Council meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 19, got to meet Dr. Effie Dean, the new Mossyrock School District interim superintendent, as she was introduced by Mossyrock School Board President Mitch Townsend.
Townsend explained Dean was chosen out of four candidates who applied to help improve the school district.
“Now that we have the right people in place, the school board 100% supports Dr. Dean. We went out of our way to bring her over here so we could start to create this new community connection and allow us to rebuild the school, the facilities and relationships between the community members, the fine government officials and our fine professionals that are in charge of educating these young students,” Townsend said.
“Budget cuts are all over the place, and so we’re trying to come up with some ways to pool money and community back into the school,” Dean added. “For example, I know of and just helped develop a community garden in the past school district I was at. We brought lessons in for the students. We got a grant for the greenhouse. There were a lot of Native American students in the area, so they got a grant for an Indigenous walk, community garden and also a (career and technical education) program.”
Students at the Nespelem School District, where Dean was at before, now get to enjoy farm-to-table fruits and vegetables they grow themselves in their school cafeteria.
Additionally, Dean is focused on improving safety on the streets around the Mossyrock School District. New bus routes and drop-off routes have been announced for the upcoming school year as well in Mossyrock. They can be found on the school district’s official Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/mossyrockschools.
Dean also announced there is an upcoming back-to-school open house event for the Mossyrock School District from 4 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 26.
“Join us inside the school. Join us outside the school. We’re trying to build the community,” Dean said.
During last Wednesday’s meeting, councilors also approved a pair of ordinances concerning roaming, unleashed dogs and farm animals owned within city limits.
The dog ordinance was passed after repeated complaints from residents about unrestrained dogs chasing them and an incident last year where a Morton police officer was bitten and taken out of service for several months after trying to handle a dog on the loose, as previously reported by The Chronicle.
The City of Mossyrock contracts with the neighboring Morton Police Department for law enforcement services.
As for the livestock ordinance, Mossyrock Mayor Randall Sasser explained the main change to city code was the restriction on owning roosters within city limits.
“If people have roosters now, then those are ‘grand-roostered’ in. But if those roosters pass on, then you can’t get more roosters. But you can have as many chickens as you want within city limits, but they need to take care of them,” Sasser said. “They need to give them good shelter and take care of them, and be respectful to your neighbors.”
While a dog licensing program has been put into place, residents are not required to register livestock with city staff.
Some attendees also floated ideas for improvements to Klickitat Prairie Park during Wednesday’s meeting.
Mossyrock Middle School fifth grader Zahra Bigbee proposed ideas for more recreational opportunities, such as a disc golf course or volleyball nets, a flower garden, a splash pad, and walking path lighting to hold more community events and tournaments.
Additionally, Mossyrock resident John Stewart pitched the idea of making Klickitat Prairie Park the new home for a 1927 carousel — specifically, the 1927 Dentzel-Muller Grand Amusement carousel which Vader City Councilor Nicole Hansen has been working to save, as previously reported by The Chronicle.
Hansen hoped to find the carousel a new home after the nonprofit restoring it announced its closure earlier this year. Hansen is also exploring options to try to get the carousel relocated to Vader’s McMurphy Park to use as both a tourist attraction and rentable wedding venue.
Stewart floated the idea of the Mossyrock Garden Club becoming the new nonprofit sponsor in an effort to bring the carousel to Klickitat Prairie Park instead.
“There’s no better place than ‘The Heart of Lewis County,’ that being here, with the 20-acre park,” Stewart said. “... There are some folks in Vader also interested, but again, I can’t think of a better spot than right here.”
Originally, it was used at an amusement park in West Virginia before being auctioned off in the 1970s to pay for a highway project.
The horses and menagerie were auctioned off separately from the main body, which eventually found its way to a pistachio farm in California, disassembled in storage containers.
According to Hansen, one of the carousel’s old horses is on display at a Chicago art museum.
He was joined by Mossyrock Garden Club member Kathryn Jarboe, who aside from supporting the ideas Bigbee proposed along with Stewart’s carousel pitch, also supported another project at Klickitat Prairie Park, which recently has come under criticism in community social media groups.
Back in July, Mossyrock resident Cory Whyte, a local remote control car enthusiast, created Mossy Rock RC and proposed building a community RC track in a section of Klickitat in a Facebook announcement in July. In Napavine, an RC track was built at Napavine Community Park back in 2024.
However, since Whyte’s July proposal, other community members have posted public opposition to his idea.
“I know that there’s been a lot of pushback on social media about not having it, and I’m not sure why not,” Sasser said during this month’s meeting.
The main concern for those opposed to the RC track was the noise from gas-powered RC cars, though supporters of the track made the counter-proposal of limiting use of the track to battery-powered RC cars only.
Jarboe supported building an RC track, stating Klickitat Prairie Park is large enough to handle the noise, on top of addressing another issue.
“I see our park as underutilized. Since we’ve been here, we’ve been here 12 years, I think vandalism has increased, because there’s nothing for kids to do in this town,” Jarboe said. “I think any idea like this is worth looking into … It’s such a beautiful park, and it's underutilized.”
Jarboe’s comment came shortly after Sasser addressed another ongoing issue involving local youth — several riding around Mossyrock’s streets on electric bicycles, also known as e-bikes, while ignoring the rules of the road.
“They’re gonna get hurt, or they’re gonna hurt somebody else,” Sasser said.
