It has been my pleasure to serve as the City Manager for the City of Moses Lake since January 2020. With COVID and the need to stabilize the city organization as key challenges, I am happy to report we have made great progress! When I started, one of the goals set for me was to get our statutory planning up to date and in November 2021, the City Council adopted the updated Comprehensive Plan. With the diligent work of our departments, we are well on our way with implementing the plan, which includes the following:
- Development regulation updates
- Streamlining permit procedures
- Master Street Plan for the Corporate Limits
- Master Street Plan for the Unincorporated UGA
- Water/Sewer Comprehensive Plan updates
- Stormwater Comprehensive Plan updates
As a citizen, you may say “All planning and no action…” however you have to plan in order to know where you are headed and to know what the significant and serious issues are needing addressed. As staff, it is our job to do the planning so we can identify the issues that need to be addressed by the City Council. If Moses Lake is to grow, our planning has identified that we have some significant investments that will need to be made in our backbone infrastructure (roads, sewer, police/fire facilities) and first and foremost, water. As staff, we are very concerned about the quality and quantity of our water, how we will support growth, and we want to ensure that obstacles to healthy water are being addressed.
The city is now heading into our annual budget process. It is through the annual budget that the City Council assures that plans get implemented by funding the identified needs. The Council met in February to lay out goals. They confirmed these goals with City staff in our budget kick-off on August 9th and asked staff to ensure the budgets were developed with the goals in mind which are:
At the budget kick-off the Council wanted to be sure that the public weighed in as well. A survey has been developed and we need to hear your voice! The survey can be accessed online at the City’s website, it will be sent out on the city’s social media and we’ll provide a link to neighborhood Facebook pages. In addition, paper copies will be available. We’ll have a booth at the fair and we encourage you to stop by, take the survey and provide us with input. At the City booth you will also be able to provide input on stormwater, trails and housing. The survey will be available through mid-September and then I will be holding a City Manager meeting with the community to provide results and provide another opportunity for you to weigh in. If there is a group that would like to have a meeting to take the survey together, I would be happy to attend, as would our Council members.
Moses Lake is a community in dynamic change. It is critical to hear from you so that when the City Council makes choices about what will or won’t be funded, they will have had an opportunity to hear from more of you than those who show up at meetings. We hope you take the opportunity.
Finally, I want to stress that we are in a new day at the City. As City Manager, both on my own accord and with policy direction from the City Council, I have been working diligently to hire staff with a customer service ethic. We encourage you to reach out to staff with questions and give us the opportunity to answer. As a city, we are here to serve our citizens and we care. Governmental processes are sometimes difficult to understand, and so we would love an opportunity to talk through concerns on a staff level. These answers are often hard to provide on the spot in a public meeting. Our doors are open and we are working to live up to our Mission and Vision:
Vision
Moses Lake is a diverse, connected and supportive community of innovation and opportunity that values its namesake lake, small town vibe, growing arts and cultural scene, aerospace, manufacturing and agricultural heritage and an abundance of sunshine and outdoor activities.
Mission
Provide a service-oriented government that works with all interests in the community to implement our vision.
Original source can be found here.
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