By Austin Williams
The Centralia City Council approved the 2024 budget at its regular meeting on Monday, holding the public budget hearing beforehand. City manager Kory Smith outlined the budget during the hearing, emphasizing the budget’s focus on the city’s greatest needs, most notably the plans for a new water treatment plant for Centralia. Bids for the new water treatment and new raw water line are set to go out, with construction planned for 2025.
The budget includes a 4.95% property tax levy increase which the council also passed Monday night. Smith says it will compensate for projected losses in revenue, as well as an additional 50-cent surcharge per 1,000 gallons of water used to help fund the water treatment plant. Council members made it clear that the new plant would be the city’s top spending priority in the near future.
Councilman Izzy Fontanez spoke at length on the importance of funding this project for the well-being of Centralia and the surrounding area.
“We do have a responsibility to take care of this city, I mean we’ve got to keep everyone safe… We have to stop kicking the can down the road. At this point, the can is rusted, we need new shoes and the road’s got potholes—it’s time for us to actually do something and fix it. I’m glad we’re doing the raw water line, and the water plant was sorely needed 26 years ago. If that means that people are going to be angry because we raised taxes, so be it. I’d rather have them angry with me now than have my son wonder why this city went under.”
Mayor Kuder added that a new and improved plant would not only ensure the health and safety of the city, but also enable new industrial growth.
“Not only does that water treatment plant provide water for us and thirteen other communities, that’s what’s going to guarantee our growth. We have had corporations and industries that have showed up at Centralia in the past and said, ‘this is the plant we want to build,’ but this plant requires X amount of water that our water treatment plant cannot provide… By the time our (new plant) is built, our (old) water treatment plant will be a hundred years old. I don’t want to be the mayor that has to face the public because I kicked that can down the road just like the past administrations did and something happens, like a catastrophic disaster with the old water treatment plant.”
Aside from the budget and tax levy, the council passed resolutions including holiday bonuses for city employees, street maintenance for 2024 under the MFT street maintenance program, and a contract with CivicPlus to design a new website for the city of Centralia. The website’s last redesign was in 2012. The goal of the upcoming redesign is to bring the website into up-to-date ADA compliance and improve overall accessibility and ease of use.
The Centralia City Council’s next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, December 28.
