The South Bend City Council met on the night of Monday September 12 for their regular bi-monthly city council meeting. Police Department Chief Eastham and City Supervisor Houk were absent and in Chief Eastham's stead was Sgt. Lucas Stigall. Mayor Julie Struck led with the pledge of allegiance and approved the minutes of the previous meeting before moving to correspondence. Secretary/Treasurer Dee Roberts reported a letter from the Department of Ecology:
"Congratulations, the Willapa Regional Waste Water Treatment Plant is receiving the 2015 waste water treatment plant outstanding performance award. Of approximately 300 waste water treatment plants statewide yours is one of 119 that achieved full compliance in 2015."
The council moved to the next item on the agenda, a presentation from the Coastal Community Action Program on a housing project happening in South Bend.
The CEO from CCAP, Craig Dublanko presented:
"We serve local Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties. Historically we have not done a great job of serving Pacific County. In the last three years we've been working hard at changing that and we've had a much bigger presence here and that's been intentional," explained Dublanko, "Back in November of 2015 we got a call from some employees in Pacific County and they said that they had applied for a homeless housing grant for Pacific County and won it. We asked them what they said they would do. They said that CCAP would do eighteen units of homeless housing units in Pacific County. So we've been working on this for a little while and we've met with the Mayor and in that discussion we showed her some potential property that we've been looking at. In the discussion, it made sense to come before the council and we were told we didn't have to but we wanted to. CCAP likes to do stuff with the support of the community. That's just how we operate. So we've identified a piece of property on Broadway that used to have mobile units on it. We've negotiated with the land owner and our board has approved purchase of this property and we're excited," said Dublanko.
Dublanko went on to explain that the plan is to put four duplexes on the property. Two will have two bedroom units. There are four one bedroom units as well. The clientele that will be in there are folk that are homeless. Generally it will be single folk. The project is hoped to be started sometime in October and hopefully occupied by the first quarter of 2017.
Sgt. Stigall reported that Labor Day was quiet for the Police Department. The mayor joined in on congratulating the Police Department, also expressing that the Labor Day celebration was a success. Struck raised the point that they need someone next year to help manage the vendors, expressing that the job is one that a person should focus on without other jobs.
The council meeting was adjourned and the next meeting will be held on Monday, September 26 at 5:30pm.