Grays Harbor County mayors discussed their cities’ greatest challenges and achievements over the last year at the annual Greater Grays Harbor Inc. Lunch with the Mayors event Tuesday.

Seven of the nine mayors attended the Zoom meeting; only Westport Mayor Rob Bearden and Oakville Mayor Angelo Cilluffo were unable to join. The meeting was moderated by Peter King, CEO of the Washington Association of Cities, a nonprofit organization that represents the state’s cities and towns in legislative, state agency and other arenas.

The event began with former Cosmopolis Mayor and current County Commissioner Vickie Raines leading a moment of silence for Bill Simpson, former Aberdeen mayor and city councilman, who passed away March 3.

“Raines called Simpson “the epitome of public service,” noting he had spent more than half his life doing service to his community and country. He was a big supporter of the festivals that celebrated Aberdeen’s history, said Raines, who called him “one of Aberdeen’s biggest cheerleaders.”

King asked each mayor to describe their city’s top success during a year dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to share a challenge the city is facing. Their responses are listed in the order given.

Crystal Dingler, Ocean Shores

“My biggest challenge, the one thing that keeps me up nights, is my community, half its residents are over 62 years old. That’s 3,500 people in an age group where the virus is more deadly than other age groups, and I’m concerned about them. For many of them it’s sort of an impossible trip to get to where they can take part in mass vaccination clinics and I worry that they’re not going to get out as soon as the rest of us.” The virus has kept that population of older residents in particular away from other people and activities that can keep them vibrant, said Dingler.

She said the biggest success was the city’s ability, with the assistance of Congressman Derek Kilmer, who also attended the forum, to “engage the Corps of Engineers in our need to rebuild the north jetty. This is a huge factor for us. when you live next to that gorgeous ocean that occasionally attacks you, you really need all the help you can get.”

The city is engaged in a 10-year project to rebuild the north jetty, “for navigation and for us as a city to help with the very real and severe erosion issues we have,” said Dingler.

Jim Sorensen, Elma

“The biggest challenge was COVID related and had to do with our parks. I wanted to keep them open for recreational sports last spring and summer, but we did have to close them down.” He said it was the hardest decision he had to make in 2020, to shut down the city’s multiple play fields, leaving too many kids “stuck on their (electronic) devices” and not able to get outside and play and exercise.

Success in 2020 for Elma came in the form of record sales tax revenue, putting the budget in the black. At the beginning of the pandemic, “sales tax revenue was so low, but it bounced back and we’ve been getting record sales tax revenue month after month,” said Sorensen, adding that “the CARES Act money that came was helpful” as well.

Brenda Orffer, McCleary

“The challenge now with COVID is, how do we reopen? How do we get back to what we consider normal?” She said it’s one thing to keep businesses open, but after economic shutdowns “it’s a completely different challenge for us to find a pathway to the economy and businesses being open and people being comfortable being out and about in the community.”

She said the city had “a relatively successful year despite COVID,” which “really fell to the council and staff here in McCleary that did such a great job staying on top of the guidance” provided by the state and implementing those procedures “and all the information we were receiving” that changed rapidly, often day to day.

Vini Samuel, Montesano

“When we look at significant challenges that faced us in the last year it’s kind of funny to try to pinpoint one. Every day it seemed like we were walking a precarious road. What I’m most proud of is that we just kept walking, and I think we accomplished everything we had planned in 2020, that was budgeted for, and that took a lot of people having faith in the city and just not feeling overwhelmed, despite I think, being very overwhelmed.”

A success was creating a 10-year infrastructure plan for the city’s water, sewer, storm, street, fire and EMS, said Samuel. This included a raise in utility rates. A challenge is the roughly 15-20% decrease in storefront taxes. “Fortunately, the Legislature had made a decision for a destination tax for online shopping, that saved us.” What’s not yet known is the impact on the city from the loss of sales taxes will have long term.

Kyle Pauley, Cosmopolis

“Former Aberdeen Mayor Bill Simpson was a resident of Cosi at the time of his passing, and last week we lost one of our council members who passed away, and it’s a loss to the city in many ways. He was an exemplary public servant. He ran for the right reasons, asked the right questions, and was a true steward of public funds. That’s just been another thing in what’s been a really long year for us. Cosmo Specialty Fibers, the largest employers and producer, shut down for most of the year, but things are becoming a little easier to navigate with their workers back and kind of running full-on operations.”

The community has rallied, with city staff making cuts where needed and volunteers stepping up to help with things such as landscaping work, which had fallen by the wayside because of the city’s lack of funds, said Pauley.

“We have been able to continue planning on our municipal building, a lot of virtual planning and construction plans, and are hoping for a May groundbreaking,” said Pauley. “Housing statistics are now back to pre-COVID levels it seems and we have some exciting plans in the future.”

Pete Schave, Aberdeen

“As soon as the COVID proclamations came down we proposed 10% cuts and were prepared for as much as 15%. The staff worked real hard to prepare and we ended the year (with) about 3% cuts, so a lot better than we planned for.”

The city’s priority projects remain on track and would be beneficial for the county, region and state, said Schave.

“The number one project going forward is the North Shore Levee,” said Schave. “This is a huge thing that affects the whole community — the houses and homeowners, new development, even remodeling houses, and economic development in our downtown is just going to stagnate worse and worse if we don’t get this levee built, so it’s really important.”

Schave said Kilmer’s office, local legislators and the partnership with the City of Hoquiam has helped move the project forward.

The east Aberdeen rail separation project is “also in my mind another huge economic benefit to this community,” said Schave. “It not only makes a safe route for traffic to and from the shopping areas over there, but it allows the rail to move smoother through that area, and the rail traffic is the future of this community.”

Rail traffic is bound to the Port of Grays Harbor, and the rail separation project and the Port’s success are key to growing the economy, said Schave.

“That package is the future of this community,” he said. “I believe the Port is going to take off into the future with a tremendous amount of economic development, and rail is going to be important to that. Not just valuable for Aberdeen, but the region and the state.”

Ben Winkelman, Hoquiam

“We were able to continue our collaboration on the levee projects with the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority, both cities working together, and with legislators to find the funding that is critical for that project. I think we are all fingers crossed and ready to work through that project to the end.”

Both cities are also working on forming a Regional Fire Authority to combine both’s fire and EMS services. “It looks like, potentially, something that could be on the ballot for the public this year.” The topic has been discussed for many years, but now looks on the path to reality, “and it’s something our cities probably need” as those services are a very expensive part of running cities, said Winkelman.

The pandemic has backed up the city’s court system and has impacted the city jail, said Winkelman, “how we handle enforcement and court hearings is challenging for us.” He’s asked the city’s department heads to look into how funds from the latest federal COVID relief package can help the challenges in the court system, as well as how it could be best used city-wide.