Proponents of a street project in Montesano were frustrated by the reluctance of Grays Harbor Community Hospital to commit to a large street project that will front a clinic run by the hospital district.

According to the city, the hospital district met a deadline at the last minute, but added unreasonable stipulations when granting an easement the city needed, and jeopardized federal funding for the project to the point that the city had to threaten to skip over the clinic when making improvements to the rest of the street.

The district’s actions drew the ire of Grays Harbor County Commissioner Vickie Raines, who admonished the hospital district in a June 9 email to news outlets and others.

The hospital said it would have no comment on the issue.

Background

The City of Montesano currently is in the right-of-way acquisition phase of its East Pioneer (Avenue) Project, which will redo streets and sidewalks along the avenue. To make the sidewalks handicap accessible, the city will have to widen sidewalks.

Several businesses were asked to donate a sliver of their property to the city as a right-of-way easement. The city also offered to complete an appraisal to pay the locations for the right-of-way acquisition.

As of Friday morning, all of the properties and businesses including NAPA Auto Parts, Gepetto’s Italian Restaurant and Sports Bar and Anchor Bank within the East Pioneer Project area had agreed to right of way acquisition terms with the city, except Grays Harbor Hospital District 2 which owns the clinic at 319 E. Pioneer Ave.

The property in question has a lot that is about 100 feet wide, and the city was looking to acquire a strip about 6 inches to 1 foot deep to widen the sidewalk. According to Montesano’s Chief Financial Officer Doug Streeter, it is equal to one-tenth of 1 percent of the clinic’s total property. The value of that bit of property, Streeter said, is about $97.

Dispute

Some two months ago the Grays Harbor Hospital District 2, which owns Community Hospital, proposed that the city trade the right of way easement for a city-owned half-acre parcel of land near the Park and Ride in Montesano. Streeter balked at that suggestion. The city has been looking into installing a billboard at that location and the hospital district could advertise on the billboard if the city builds one, Streeter suggested.

Late on June 9, the hospital district sent an agreement to the city which included easements and a separate billboard contract. The billboard contract included a line that stated the city would owe the hospital district an unspecified amount (a blank space was left in the contract) if the billboard is not ready by December this year.

Streeter said he asked hospital district Chief Operating Officer Larry Kahl for a specific amount and Kahl said $40,000.

“After I got up off my floor, I got back to him and said, ‘I just want to be clear that for .0003 acres, you’re asking for that.’ His response was ‘How about $30,000,’” Streeter said.

Kahl did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Funding

Ultimately, $800,000 in federal funding is on the line if the project doesn’t move forward.

The $800,000 was awarded to the Grays Harbor Council of Governments (COG) as a block grant through the Surface Transportation Program administered by the Federal Highway Administration. Through a competitive process, COG awarded the funding to the City of Montesano for the East Pioneer Project. If the project hadn’t moved forward, that $800,000 would have been unobligated.

“It’s an $800,000 deadline, and if we don’t meet it, we lose $800,000, and COG loses $800,000 going forward into the foreseeable future on any transportation projects,” Streeter had said early on Monday.

In her June 9 email to the hospital district, Raines also expressed her concern about losing the funding.

“Ultimately, we are trying to manage with very restrictive time constraints, for which this project’s documents must be submitted for final approval. However, if project documents aren’t received, the funding is lost,” Raines wrote. “This will result in not only the loss of funding to the city for this specific project, but a ‘black mark’ will be placed on the Grays Harbor Council of Governments that will diminish its eligibility for the standard level of funding for at least the next decade. Therefore, the potential loss of funding to the communities of Grays Harbor over the next decade, would be in millions of dollars — monies our local jurisdictions and municipalities will not receive. We simply cannot afford to let this happen”

COG executive director Vicki Cummings applauded Raines’ email.

“There’s a timeline associated with these types of projects. To drag it out and do anything that could jeopardize the timeline puts the city in a precarious situation that could see them losing the project,” Cummings said.

Next steps

The city ultimately offered the hospital district two options. Both options would see the project move forward — one with the hospital district participation, the other without.

The first option was for the hospital district to accept the easements as presented by the city. That option removed any sort of a contractual obligations for a billboard.

The second option was for the hospital district to choose to not participate. In that case, Streeter said the city would not have improved the sidewalk in front of the clinic.

In the end, the hospital district chose to move forward without any terms for a billboard and approved a temporary construction easement with the city by noon Monday.