Friday, March 29, 2024

House of Representatives acknowledges City of Brewster

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OLYMPIA – It isn’t every day that the Washington State House of Representatives acknowledges en masse a small town’s achievement with a standing ovation. And when Brewster city officials made a special trip to the State House in mid-March to thank their legislators for city water financing assistance, they certainly weren’t expecting one.
Like all municipalities in the state, Brewster officials compiled a long-range, 20-year plan – a wish list of sorts – of water infrastructure projects they wanted to complete. And like every other small town, what Brewster could realize in that plan depended in large part on loans and grant funding that could be secured to pick up part of the tab.
The main problem that has been confronting the city for years has been manganese in the domestic water supply. Former Brewster mayor and now council member, Jan May, made the manganese problem her primary goal when she was elected mayor of Brewster. Ruiz advised May that she would need time – several years - to work on securing the funds necessary to get the job done.
“The money is out there, you just have to find it,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz, who said later that she likes financial challenges, went to work.
At least half of the equation of finding the money to get a project like Brewster’s water well system funded, is calculating how all of part if it is going to be repaid without placing increasing financial burdens on the ratepayers.
Brewster’s well retrofit carried a multi-million-dollar price tag. For the entire state of Washington, only some five million dollars is allocated statewide for such rural municipal projects. To find the money it needed the city would have to look to federal-level funding for the money it needed.
Ruiz began applying with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development division for the money Brewster needed. Six times she applied and was six time refused, but along the way, Ruiz took the RD model and re-engineered it to fit the loan-reimbursement profile of small town Brewster.
Along the way, the 2014 Carlton Complex wildfire happened, threatening the town and taxing its reservoir system. It was then that the city discovered that one of its reservoirs was losing significant amounts of water and would need a replacement at worst, or renovation at best. The city secured $1.25 million plus an additional 750,000 to build a new 500,000-gallon reservoir, repair the original that was leaking and install a network of city water meters.
On the seventh try at USDA-RD, Brewster won approval of its funding request that would amount to almost $9 million from all sources. When he announced the award at a council meeting last year, Mayor Art Smith chuckled in an aside “and they said it couldn’t be done!”
With the help of legislators like Rep. Mike Steele, R-Chelan, and state senators Penny McQuade and Jim Honeyford, among other, officials arranged some 75 percent forgiveness of the monies. The city will repay $2.6 million over 40 years.
Brewster’s 20-year water comp plan has been reduced by more than half and the best part is that the loan repayment will not increase the amount ratepayers are paying now.
When city officials journeyed to Olympia to say “thanks” their fiscal achievement had preceded them. The House Speaker recognized the group seated in the public gallery and the entire House rose in unison to endorse the gesture.
“It was a total shock,” said Ruiz. “None of us expected that.”
The delegation also away with an invitation from their legislators to return with requests for more funding.
“They do like our project,” Ruiz said.

House of Representatives, brewster, city water financing, Olympia

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