U.S. representative for Washington’s 6th Congressional District, Emily Randall, visited Grays Harbor County Tuesday.

After visiting with Hoquiam officials, including City Administrator Brian Shay, and touring the North Shore levee site, Rep. Randall participated in a roundtable discussion with civic and business leaders at Greater Grays Harbor, Inc., (GGHI) in Aberdeen.

Representatives from Grays Harbor County, Grays Harbor PUD, the Port of Grays Harbor, the city of Aberdeen and The Music Project were able to ask Rep. Randall about the current political climate in Washington, D.C., and engage in a frank discussion about the state and fate of federal funding for key infrastructure projects, healthcare, and more.

In attendance at the roundtable: Alissa Shay from the Port of Grays Harbor, Aberdeen Mayor Douglas Orr and City Administrator Ruth Clemens, Grays Harbor County Administrator Sam Kim and District 1 Commissioner Georgia Miller, Ian Cope, Dave Timmons and Schuyler Burkhart from Grays Harbor PUD, Dani Bacon of The Music Project, and GGHI representatives Kyle Pauley, Darrin Raines, Candi Gleason, Loretta Thomas and Stephanie Conway.

After introductions, everyone in attendance engaged in a candid discussion about the lack of affordable housing, the uncertainty surrounding federal funding and grants, potential cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, the North Shore levee project and its implications, business and economic development in the region, challenges with the permitting and environmental assessment processes, and specific infrastructure projects such as the U.S. Highway 12 rail separation and Port expansion projects, and the rail noise study.

“I’ll be very transparent. They don’t tell us before they cut things any earlier than they tell everyone else, I don’t think there is any program that seems safe,” Rep. Randall said. “It’s depressing watching SNL (Saturday Night Live) because they can’t get crazier. It’s really challenging; our team has tried to be engaged with folks at agencies that my staff has worked with before to get more information. Senator (Patty) Murray said yesterday that they have tried, and there is less information they can get from any federal agencies about what is coming. So much of the work you do should be bipartisan or non-partisan, investments in community resiliency infrastructure like the levee should be an easy bipartisan success. Right now, anything that allows government to work in the way we’ve expected it to work is a partisan issue. Looking for cuts in every single possible place to fund tax breaks for billionaires seems to be the name of the game.”

Rep. Randall said that the Seattle Housing and Urban Development office is set to close, employees are losing their jobs, and every federal agency building is at risk because of Seattle’s status as a “sanctuary city.”

“I don’t think it’s about immigration,” Rep. Randall said. “I think it’s an excuse to make government less efficient and erode our trust in government so it can be privatized.”

Grays Harbor PUD mentioned the current presidential administration’s desire to privatize the Bonneville Power Administration. GGHI’s CEO Raines also mentioned the prime-age employment gap in the Grays Harbor area, especially regarding the need for power that business development demands and the federal recompete grant that is currently frozen.

“With that recompete grant, even if we didn’t get the Phase II grant funding, which would be incredible for generations, but being able to come to the table and create a strategic plan to move forward on our own because we don’t even have a plan,” County Commissioner Miller said. “Sounds like we’re to some degree on our own, and we need to develop a plan regardless, I know the County is committed to doing that and to sticking our hand across the aisle, it shouldn’t be a partisan issue when you’re talking about getting people to work and economic development. Hopefully, the recompete grant … can continue to be funded. Grays Harbor sure could use the boost. That would be huge.”

Miller added that the permitting process has been a roadblock regarding economic development in Grays Harbor County, a hot topic of Gov. Bob Ferguson’s visit last week.

Clemens discussed the plans for the former Shoppes at Riverside structure and implications for employment, housing and education.

“We have a factory coming into our abandoned mall on the south side of Aberdeen, and they are hoping to bring in 300 jobs. They are building steel-framed stackable housing units,” Clemens said. “I know they are very serious, they have already submitted all their permits, (it’s) really taking off in the next month. But it uses robotics. I could be wrong, but we don’t have that skill set here. I think something like the recompete grant would help (Grays Harbor College) and maybe include something like that in their curriculum and partner with Pinnacle (MOD Seattle) to provide that workforce training.”

Clemens added that such an initiative would affect the housing situation in the area, as workers would come to Grays Harbor to staff such efforts.

Shay then talked about the implications of the current federal government’s stance on trade regarding the Port of Grays Harbor’s foreign trade zone and the potential effects of tariffs on goods moving in and out of the Port.

In addition to federal funding anxiety regarding infrastructure, trade and economic development, concerns have arisen regarding civil and equal rights protections, for which Washington state has a history of being on the frontier.

“Some of the work that we can do to protect people in Washington, we have done already at the state level,” Rep Randall said. “When I was elected in ‘18, that was a lot of our goals to make sure we were Trump-proofing to an extent. How do we ensure that Washingtonians are safe? Over the last handful of years, we saw a bunch of folks from Texas, Florida and Idaho move to Washington state because they wanted to ensure that they and their families and kids had civil rights protections. Our ability to push back at the federal level looks much different than actually being able to pass policy. We are messaging, trying to mitigate the harm, and working to stop policy wherever we can that is bad. This is another place where the courts play such an important role as one of the three branches of government to be a check and balance.”

Rep. Randall mentioned the recent birthright citizenship case as a success in the courts.

“Our Attorney General Nick Brown has been successful in defending citizenship. Who knew that the 14th Amendment was something this administration would try to interpret differently,” Rep. Randall said. “He had the first positive court outcome against any Trump executive orders, and it was when this administration tried to repeal birthright citizenship, and a judge laughed them out of court. I think protecting the integrity of our courts continues to be very important.”

Another issue raised was childcare, which will be further exacerbated by current and pending infrastructure, construction, and economic development initiatives and the potential influx of temporary or transient workers.

Rep. Randall said the desire for communities to thrive should be bipartisan.

“I want my neighbors, no matter who they vote for, to have the tools that they need to build their lives, I want kids to have a safe place to be, I want job opportunities for young people who are growing up in our small towns, I want us to be building a thriving economic future for everyone,” Rep. Randall said. “It feels like what we’re fighting for right now is the ability for any government to exist.”

Raines talked about the fragile ecosystem that is dependent on several different factors.

“Economic development, the real basis for that, is community development, that is childcare, it’s your medical field, it’s your utilities, it’s law enforcement, it’s all those things, and many others,” Raines said. “That should be 100% non-partisan because it affects the ability of any community to be better and improve themselves. I just wish there was some way to get that message across to everybody.”

Pauley asked Rep. Randall what her priorities are and what Grays Harbor County community leaders could do to help her achieve her goals.

“I certainly have dream policy goals, they feel like real dreams right now, like a Santa wish list. I worked a lot on the path toward universal health care at the state level, that’s something I’d love to be building on,” Rep. Randall said. “I would love for us to be talking about how we expand healthcare access and get real support to the rural hospitals and clinics and providers that are the safety net for people so that folks don’t have to drive to Olympia or Seattle to see a specialist. And that should be bipartisan. We’re talking about defending against $880 billion in Medicaid cuts, which could put all of the hospitals (and more) on the peninsula out of business. I would love to see us do more work on trade education, two-year, four-year education access. Not everyone has to go to college, but everyone should have the same option to go to college. They’re dismantling the Department of Education, and we could lose any and all federal grants for college and loan subsidies, not to mention the erosion of programs in the K-12 space means that fewer kids will be ready for post-secondary education, which is bad for our workforce, bad for our economy and bad for individual families who we know have worse health outcomes with less education.”

According to Data USA, 25% of the roughly 76,000 Grays Harbor County residents are insured by Medicaid, and 18.5% are covered by Medicare.

Rep. Randall ended the roundtable on a positive note.

“I do feel really honored to get to represent this community. The 6th District is one of the most special places in the country, and one of the things that makes it so special and gratifying to do this work is how committed community members like you are to making things work, to looking for ways that you can solve problems yourself, to taking care of your neighbors, to being really invested in the folks who live and work alongside you,” Rep. Randall said. “I want to make sure our team can be as strong as a partner as possible. I’m so grateful for your leadership. It’s hard to be a member of Congress, but it’s really hard to be a leader when you are right there next to people who are in pain. I’m grateful for everything that you do.”

After the roundtable, Randall toured The Pacific Northwest Music Project’s crown jewel, Unplugged, which pays tribute to Aberdeen-native Kurt Cobain and grunge music. Rep. Randall chatted with Dani and Lee Bacon, the president and vice president of The Music Project’s board of directors.

Rep. Randall then moved on to the Fry Creek Pump Station, which is critical to Chehalis Basin flood control, and had a conversation with Aberdeen City Engineer Nick Bird and Public Works Director Rick Sandger about the facility that opened in August 2024.

Later in the day, Rep. Randall held a Town Hall at Grays Harbor College, her fifth such in-person event this month.

Rep. Emily Randall chats with Aberdeen City Engineer Nick Bird at the Fry Creek Pump Station.