Two longtime Chehalis River Basin flood advocates will be stepping back from their roles on the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority board after the group's meeting late last week.
Vickie Raines attended her last meeting as a member of the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority Thursday morning as members met for a rare in-person meeting in Chehalis. In the same meeting, former Lewis County Commissioner Ron Averill introduced his replacement to the board, Centralia Planning Commissioner Chuck Kifer. Averill will continue to serve on the authority’s local projects committee.
Raines and Averill are some of the longest-serving participants in a regional effort to address flooding in the Chehalis Basin that began after the 2007 flood. Averill is a founding member of the authority, and Raines joined the group just a few years later.
“I was involved in the legislation… giving us an opportunity to create this flood authority, and I've been sitting on it ever since,” Averill said.
Raines has long represented lower Chehalis Basin communities in her roles on both the flood authority board and the Chehalis Basin Board. She served until recently as the chair of both boards. Over the years, she has also held multiple local government positions in the lower Chehalis Basin, including serving as a city council member and mayor of Cosmopolis and now as Grays Harbor County commissioner.
Raines appeared to begin stepping back from many of these rolls at the end of last year. She first stepped down as chair of the flood authority board in November, at the time recalling when she first joined the board in 2011 just three years after it had been established and four years after the disastrous 2007 flood.
Raines announced she would step down from the Chehalis Basin Board not long afterward in mid-January 2026 and announced her resignation from the Grays Harbor Board of County Commissioners a month later in February. According to a statement from Raines, her resignation from her role as a county commissioner will take effect at the end of the month, Tuesday, March 31, and she will transition into a new role with Great Rivers Behavioral Health.
“The past 15 years with the Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority, as well as the Chehalis Basin Board, I’ve played a small part in seeing over 200 projects come to fruition, millions of dollars spent to protect billions in businesses, property, homes, people, fish and habitat,” Raines said.
Raines noted in her statement that cooperation has been key to the flood and fish work done over the last 15 years. She added she is confident that the members of both the Flood Authority and the Chehalis Basin Board will continue that cooperation as they continue to address flooding in the basin.
Averill has also served as a constant member of the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority for more than 15 years. He served as a counterpart of Raines, representing the middle and upper parts of the Chehalis Basin as it flows through Lewis County. Averill has served on the board specifically as the representative for the city of Centralia for many years.
He, like Raines, also has a long history of service in local government and involvement with flood. Averill was elected as Lewis County commissioner in 2006, taking office just months before the disastrous 2007 flood. He served as a founding member of the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority shortly after.
In 2016, four years after leaving the Lewis County Board of Commissioners, Averill was elected as chair of the Washington state Emergency Management Council by its members. During his time on the board, Averill served as the representative for the Washington State Association of Counties.
Now Averill, roughly a month after celebrating his 88th birthday, will give up his voting seat on the local flood projects board. Members of the flood authority will still be seeing Averill, though. Averill will remain an alternate representative for the city of Centralia as Kifer takes over as the city’s primary representative.
Kifer briefly introduced himself to board members at the meeting, thanking them for the warm welcome and asking for patience as he gets up to speed on the board's activities.
Averill will also continue to serve on the board's local projects committee that recommends local flood projects to the board. During the Thursday meeting, Averill said point blank that he did not plan on ever leaving the board that seeks solutions to disastrous flooding, adding “this is a very important committee for me.”
“I had hoped I would see a solution before I die,” Averill said to chuckles from the other board members. “I still hold out that hope, so I’m sticking around.”
