Columbia Basin Herald Online Newspaper

Local News - Moses Lake, WA - Grant County

Reader writes of how we depend on Grant County PUD

Posted: Thursday, Apr 02, 2009 - 04:06:35 pm PDT
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By Manning L. Willis
Moses Lake resident 

MOSES LAKE — If I had any doubts about the Grant County PUD commissioners’ decision to end Ray Foianini’s contract, those were washed away with the outcry.

Previously I wondered why the commission continued using an attorney that didn’t appear to know the difference between being a judge and a barrister. Anyone that has attended the PUD commission meetings, and has been around the legal profession as long as I have, can easily spot that. His “rulings” have consistently helped keep Grant County’s economy depressed and left us back in the 20th century. That was disturbing enough.

But with the outpouring of support by commissioners Randy Allred, Greg Hansen and local citizens of the “No Jobs outside the farm, No Progress and No Prosperity Club,” it was perfectly clear that they had made the right decision.

Foianini’s backers would be the happiest if all non-farm jobs went away. Commissioners Allred and Hansen have made no bones about the fact that they want everyone non-ag to leave. Bill Judge, Larry Williamson, Rich Callahan and their cronies are just mean spirited negative attitude people that have an extremely curious hidden selfish agenda.

But have they stopped to think about what that means? Here’s a short list of what that means:

  • No money for schools
  • No newspaper, or at least nothing other than a free weekly handout with farm reports
  • No Walmart
  • No restaurants
  • Only one or two banks
  • No supermarkets, just a corner convenience store for bread — Drive to Tri-Cities or Wenatchee for your regular grocery shopping trip
  • No industrial and manufacturing jobs. That’s thousands of lost jobs. That includes REC Silicon, EKA, Moses Lake Industries, Takata, Titan, Microsoft, Katana, Genie, Busby, Yahoo!, Intuit, Guardian Insulation, Inland Mechanical and many others.
  • The PUD could probably lay off half their staff with the reduction in demand
  • No civic service clubs like the Lions, Rotary, Elks and others to do local service work.
  • 50 percent or more of all retail merchants gone
  • House prices dropping in half. And just try to sell one even at that
  • A county fair that would be about a quarter of the size it is now
  • Most attorneys, accountants, computer professionals and other related professions gone
  • Local medical facilities seriously curtailed or eliminated entirely
  • No Starbucks, and no other corner espresso businesses
  • Only one or two gas stations — Imagine what that will do to the price of gas
  • Home Depot, Lowes and probably all but one hardware store gone. And that store will probably have to cut their inventory and staff in half.


If you think I’m kidding, I can gladly show you what happened to my hometown. They chose the negative path too. Now it’s a virtual ghost town and they are begging for industry to come back. But it’s too little and too late. Their town is dead!


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innovation wrote on Apr 5, 2009 9:50 PM:

" That is a good thought Joel.
We need more innovation around here - more ambitious people who help take us through this economic hard time "

Pablo wrote on Apr 5, 2009 6:58 PM:

" Joel, Like Joe or not, you can't deny the fact that he has kept the city in the black during numerous financial upheavals. I mean really... anybody who can get the state to pay for the ash cleanup from Mt St, Helens is a genius. Most cities ended up eating the cost of it themselves. "

Joel wrote on Apr 3, 2009 11:58 AM:

" What about city hall with a manager that has been in since the 1980's. That position is usually a 7-10 year gig. Isn't it time for a change there?? Just a thought. "

Dave wrote on Apr 3, 2009 8:52 AM:

" Manning -

I think you have absolutely hit the nail on the head here.

The outcry from Foianni's friends was just too transparent and over the top. This is the same thing that has happened with that whole new prosecutor thing.

I am sick to death of reading postings and letters to the editor about how great the guys who have been around for 15-20 years are - and how we need to respect them by keeping them around indefinitely.... Oh, and how they are obviously the most qualified to do anything because they've been sitting in the same office for 15 years.

Exactly, we'd have no progress, no innovation, no new ideas - just a bunch of old cronies sitting together in these public offices with their stable govenment jobs, while the rest of us starve because the economy is weakened. "