The McCleary City Council discussed the proposed adoption of a Comprehensive Plan update and the beginnings of a dialogue with Grays Harbor Transit during a quick meeting on Wednesday evening.

No action was taken, with council members opting to defer voting anything forward until all members were present.

The Comprehensive Plan, informally referred to as the comp plan, is a roadmap for the city for about the next 20 years, said Public Works Director Chad Bedlington.

“The goal here is to update every 20 years with our comprehensive plan,” Bedlington said in an interview. “It’s a little overdue, but in Grays Harbor County, we’re not obligated under the Growth Management Act.”

While Grays Harbor isn’t obligated under the GMA, Bedlington said, the plan was written to be compliant with it so that if the county does end up being mandated under the strictures of the GMA, there’s no need to redo the plan, Bedlington said.

“We jumped through all of our hoops. We had the Department of Commerce review it,” Bedlington said. “They liked our plans. They didn’t have any comments.”

Bedlington said that with this approved, there’s a second half of the work that needs to follow.

“There’s two big parts to this. First is the comp plan, getting it up to date, getting the council to approve. The other is updating our municipal code,” Bedlington said. “If the community grows, we need to be responsive. This comp plan is our roadmap.”

Transit

Bedlington also discussed a communication from Grays Harbor Transit. McCleary’s transit station is the only one in the county not owned by Grays Harbor Transit, Bedlington said, and they had reached out to see if there was any interest in changing that.

“There’s definitely some conversations we need to continue to have with them,” Bedlington said. “Anytime we can get out of the maintenance business, I’m all for it.”

While shuffling off the maintenance costs is desirable, reacquiring property sold off could be difficult, council members mooted, while others inquired about the possibility of a lease option, or a possible figure from the sale. All of that would come with continued dialogue, Bedlington said.

“I know we’ve dealt with issues of the bathrooms being vandalized,” said Councilor Brycen Huff. “If they’re willing to take it over and maintain it I’m willing.”

Contact Senior Reporter Michael S. Lockett at 757-621-1197 or michael.lockett@thedailyworld.com.