MEDICAL LAKE — Summer 2021 is almost in full gear as City Council members plan vaccination clinics, spring clean days and finish interlocal agreements.
Medical Lake is holding a spring clean day May 15 at Waterfront Park. The event has been growing in popularity.
“We learned a lot from the last one,” City Administrator Doug Ross said at the council’s May 4 meeting.
From 8 a.m. – noon, the city will have dumpsters and crew in two park parking lots. Citizens will be able to drive in and remove their garbage, and crew members take it to dumpsters. The city will be removing some barriers off State Route 902 for easier traffic flow through the parking lot.
The event is intended to be a resource for disposing of trash or waste properly, with little hassle. However, not everything can be accepted. Some items, like paint or hazardous materials, may be rejected.
Medical Lake has teamed up with Range Community Clinic mobile vaccination services to offer vaccinations in the Medical Lake Public Library, 321 E. Herb St. from 3 – 6 p.m. on May 20. The clinic will be offering Pfizer doses and will return in early June for second doses. They are offering appointments, available online or at 1-888-RANGEWA x 1.
The city also organized options for those with transportation barriers to get to vaccination appointments, at the clinic or otherwise. This service has gone into effect. Using the state information hotline 833-VAX-HELP, people can coordinate transportation through a hotline specialist.
Medical Lake council members are also looking into transportation agreements with Spokane Regional Transportation Council, the regions planning organization. The SRTC has sent Medical Lake the 2021 Interlocal Agreement, updated from 2013, for council’s approval. The SRTC summarized some changes from the previous agreement.
Ross urged council members to approve the agreement and cited that “it is essential to belong to the SRTC.”
Boundaries and duties were also altered in the updated agreement. It addresses the SRTC’s role following both the state and federal responsibilities it would be given.
The SRTC would be required to: keep an updated transportation strategy for the area, have a transportation plan as per state and federal designations, verify the compliance of transportation plans made within the area, develop a six-year transportation improvement program that includes transportation demand management measures and provide consistent evaluation of transportation and facilities within the area.
SRTC also increased membership on the board of directors to 21 people. This gives voting representation to the Spokane and Kalispel tribes, as well as Medical Lake, Deer Park and Millwood. Representation is based mostly on population.
The voting weight system has been updated as well, allowing for weighted voting only upon the request of two directors from different areas of representation, in certain circumstances. In regular votes, the 21 representatives amount to 21 total votes. In weight votes, the total becomes 42. In those instances, the weight of Medical Lake’s vote would not change. Same goes for Deer Park, Millwood, Southeast county towns (the shared seat for Fairfield, Latah, Rockford, Spangle and Waverly), the major employer, transportation commission, Kalispel Tribe, Spokane Tribe and the freight/rail representative. The following agencies receive a weight vote of 2: Airway Heights, Cheney, Liberty Lake, Spokane Transit, WSDOT and Spokane Airports pending their rejoining the SRTC. The two city of Spokane seats, two Spokane County seats and two Spokane Valley seats would all receive a weighted vote of 3.5.
The Medical Lake City Council also revisited the Shoreline Master Plan with planner Rachel Granrath. An update is required by state law, but the plan still needed council members approval.
After the plan had been edited to address some concerns brought up at previous meetings, the motion passed with one opposed. A couple clarifying changes were made along with updates to financial restrictions.
The Shoreline Master Plan now needs to be approved by the Washington state Department of Ecology.
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