Cities see seven areas they could share services

GRANDVIEW -- City officials from three Lower Valley cities agreed in theory to city services they might share.

Now comes the hard part: the details.

"I like the idea, but practically, there are a ton of questions," said Morgan Everett, a city councilman from Prosser.

City council members from Prosser, Grandview and Sunnyside met Monday night in Grandview to discuss sharing resources, equipment and maybe even people to stretch their cash-strapped budgets as far as possible.

Fortunately, details were not on the agenda. They made no firm decisions. Any partnerships must be legally drafted as interlocal agreements and passed by each city council before they take affect.

Instead, the 25 or so council members who attended narrowed a list of 20 possibilities to seven: animal control, equipment sharing, fuel purchases, information services, online services, purchasing and recreation.

They believed those would be the easiest to pull off. Terry Chambers, a Prosser city councilman, called them "low-hanging fruit."

City staff members will draft details during the next two months, said Scott Staples, city administrator for Grandview.

Lean budget times make the cities want to share these days.

All three are facing 2009 general budgets with drastic cuts. Sunnyside has already eliminated nine positions, including two police officers. Grandview cut a few jobs over the summer, while Prosser has a proposed 2009 budget that includes utility tax increases and vacant positions.

If they share, they might avoid deeper cuts.

Here's how animal control might work, for example.

Currently, Prosser's code enforcement officer doubles as animal control. Grandview cut its animal control position over the summer. Sunnyside just terminated its contract with the Humane Society of Central Washington.

Perhaps all three cities could chip in to hire the Humane Society.

"If we could get one person to come through a couple days a week ... and just make the milk run," said Norm Childress, the mayor of Grandview.

Parks and recreation also received a lot of talk.

Grandview currently has two full-time parks and recreation directors with close to 40 years experience between them.

Sunnyside and Prosser have no one and they can't afford to hire anybody next year. Maybe they could pay a fee to Grandview for, say, youth sports sign-ups.

The few observers, other than reporters, reacted with a shrug, as long as it doesn't affect jobs.

"Equipment is one thing, personnel is something else," said Russell Shjerven, a business representative for the Teamsters Local No. 839 union, after the meeting.

The Pasco-based union represents some public works employees in Prosser. A few of them asked Shjerven to attend, he said.

Charlie Bush, the Prosser city administrator, said partnerships would help labor in the long run by preserving some jobs.

"I don't see it as something that's necessarily adversarial to labor," Bush said after the meeting.

* Ross Courtney can be reached at 930-8798 or rcourtney@yakimaherald.com.