Henry Gerhard
The HPCC has for some time wanted to upgrade the community center kitchen and make other improvements. Susan Sattem spearheaded a project to look at the improvements that should be made in the kitchen to make it work better. This kitchen project was coming to a head around Thanksgiving in 2021. At that time the kitchen project was looking into a means to finance these improvements and reached out to our State Legislators regarding state support for the kitchen improvements, as well as better access from the community hall to a proposed covered concrete patio on the west side of the building.
Our Legislative members brought to the Kitchen project the fact that there are state funds that will be available for capital improvements at county, city, and other jurisdictions in the State. The downer in this information was that all applications for such funds would have to be submitted not later than 1/28/2022, and it was just after Thanksgiving.
At that time the Kitchen Committee and the HPCC Board joined forces to get the application completed by mid-January. There was an outline that defined what information was needed, and the application had to be entered online to the legislative computer system. Once you began entering you could not go back, you could only start over. Chris Sattem managed the data needed as he would be entering the application. Deborah Weber developed the first draft of the application, which also showed us the data that we did not have. Todd Meislahn contacted the Yakama tribe who stated they were not concerned about activity at the Fire District/Community Center. The HPCC Treasurer, Henry Gerhard, contacted Riverview Bank to investigate our financial options.
Between Dec. 15 and Jan. 17, everyone helped at 8 to 10 meetings to refine the application. Chris Sattem entered the application on Jan. 20th. Now we wait to see how the legislative session proceeds. We may be awarded the full $800,000 we requested, we may receive only a portion of that, and we may receive nothing. Regardless, we will continue to do whatever we can to bring about needed improvements.