LA CENTER – Applause broke out at a La Center City Council meeting this week, after city leaders approved a long-awaited, historic agreement between La Center and the city’s newest neighbors, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe.
At the heart of the agreement is the Cowlitz tribe’s $32 million renovation of the Interstate 5 (I-5) junction in between La Center’s westernmost boundary and the new Cowlitz Indian Reservation, where construction on a Las Vegas-style casino resort is already underway.
After several years of back-and-forth negotiations between the tribe and the city, tribal leaders said the intergovernmental agreement had reached a critical point – if city leaders could not find common ground and enter into the agreement, the tribe feared their casino resort complex would open before the I-5 improvements had been completed, causing a traffic nightmare for casino visitors and residents of La Center.
“We are now 75 days behind schedule on the construction at the interchange,” Cowlitz representative Dave Barnett told the city councilors on Feb. 24. “The cost to the city will be huge if (the interchange) is not done when we open the casino.”
In an effort to sweeten the deal for La Center, the tribe offered to pay for the city’s multi-million-dollar sewer extension, which will run from the city’s wastewater treatment facility to the western edge of La Center’s municipal boundary near the I-5 junction.
City leaders have been saying for years that getting sewer services to commercial and industrial lands near the I-5 junction is critical to La Center’s future. Many city councilors, as well as La Center residents, fear that the tribal casino – projected to open in 2017 – will pull customers from the privately owned card rooms that operate within La Center limits and currently provide the city with about three-fourths of its general fund revenues.
The new intergovernmental agreement between the city of La Center and the Cowlitz Indian Tribe states that the tribe will pay for “all costs of design, permitting and construction of the sewer system extension.” In return, the city has agreed to implement either a latecomer fee program or system development charges for properties that connect to the sewer extension to help reimburse the tribe for the sewer extension costs.
The agreement signed on Wednesday night lays out the basic agreement, but city and tribal leaders have 120 days to figure out a financing option for the sewer extension. If the city and tribe cannot find a “mutually satisfactory financing agreement” within 120 days, the “tribe shall obtain financing for the design, permitting, construction and financing costs of the sewer system extension.”
The tribe made its sewer system offer just two days before the city council met on Wednesday, and councilors were, at first, hesitant to sign the agreement without more input from their financial advisors.
The city’s public works director, Jeff Sarvis, told the council he worried that saddling future sewer customers near the I-5 junction with expensive system development fees would make the city’s westernmost commercial and industrial lands cost-prohibitive for developers. Ray Bartlett, a financial consultant for the city, also told councilors that he worried that the language in the agreement would put the city on the hook for obtaining financing it might not be able to secure.
About one hour into the discussion, the council members appeared poised to put the issue on hold for another couple of weeks. Then, Philip Harju, vice chairman of the Cowlitz Tribal Council and the tribe’s legal counsel, stood before the councilors to push for faster action on the intergovernmental agreement.
“We’re close to adopting a historic agreement and I don’t think there’s anything that’s been brought up today that would prevent you from signing this,” Harju said. “This obligates the tribe to pay for a five-six-seven million dollar extension of the sewer. It’s a bitter pill for the tribe to swallow … and you could have a dozen lawyers here tonight, but we’re not going to figure out the (financing) details tonight.”
Harju added that the tribe was supposed to start the I-5 interchange project – which will totally revamp the La Center I-5 entrance and exit ramps, provide roundabouts for better traffic flow into the city and to the Cowlitz reservation and, eventually, install a traffic light to help guide traffic headed toward the city of La Center – on Jan. 1.
“We were supposed to start this at the beginning of the year,” Harju said. “If we spend another 60 to 90 days on this (the intergovernmental agreement), we won’t be able to get people off the freeway to the casino. The tribe is willing to give back more than we take. Trust the tribe. We trust you and I’m don’t know what else we can do to move forward ... We urge you to not delay voting on this.”
After taking two 15-minute breaks to meet with their attorneys and Cowlitz tribal representatives, the city council came back to the standing-room-only council meeting around 9 p.m. on Wednesday night with a slightly tweaked agreement – one that provided better protection for the city’s interests. In the final agreement approved Wednesday, the Cowlitz tribe also has agreed:
• To find financing mechanisms for the sewer extension if the city cannot obtain financing within 120 days of the agreement. The tribe will still pay upfront costs for the entire project, but the new language gives the city a sense of safety in the event that the municipality cannot obtain loans or bonds for the multi-million-dollar sewer expansion.
• To waive its sovereign status for the purposes of the agreement, which gives the city legal recourse if the tribe fails to comply with the terms laid out in the intergovernmental agreement. If either party breaches the agreement, the other party can bring action in Superior Court for Clark County or Cowlitz County, after “providing a 30-day written notice and opportunity to cure any alleged breach” of the agreement.
Additionally, the tribe has agreed to not seek trust or reservation status for land it may acquire east of I-5 that is south of Paradise Park and north of 299th Street. This provision was something that city leaders pushed out of concern that these lands, which are valuable to the city’s future commercial and industrial development, would fall under tribal reservation status and be exempt as a tax base for La Center.
The final agreement approved Wednesday states: “For any business or enterprise owned or operated by the tribe on land east of Interstate 5 and within the corporate limits of the city, the tribe will pay all applicable state and local taxes.”
Councilor Al Luiz said he thought the city needed to find a way to approve the agreement on Wednesday night and move forward.
“I think it’s critical that we get this taken care of, and tonight is preferable,” Luiz said. “(If the casino opens without the I-5 traffic improvements) the traffic will be an absolute disaster. With this agreement, we have the ability to get the interchange and to get the sewer out there … we’ve been saying for years that it’s all about the sewer line.”
Luiz added that, if the city has sewer service to its westernmost lands near I-5, that area will be developable and ready for commercial and industrial customers, who could help the city weather revenue losses if the privately owned card rooms close.
“The city needs to offset some of the losses (if) the card room revenues go down,” Luiz said. “If we delay this, we’ll have a casino and no sewer line and no way of dictating what goes on out there … I think it’s time to move forward on this. It’s what’s best for the city.”
Luiz made a motion to approve the intergovernmental agreement with the last-minute amendments and Councilor Randy Williams seconded the motion. The final vote was 5-0 in favor of the intergovernmental agreement with the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. The audience met the vote with a round of whoops and applause.
For more information, or to read the entire intergovernmental agreement between the city of La Center and the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, visit www.ci.lacenter.wa.us and click on the “City Council” tab at the top of the page, then on the “Minutes/Agenda” tab and, finally, on the “Packets” link for the council’s Feb. 24 meeting.
