Palouse will seek 3 November levies

The City of Palouse approved three measures to go on the ballot in November; an increased total for the annual pool maintenance, a regular six-year levy for emergency management services and the city's annual streets maintenance levy.

For the pool, the total being asked of voters goes up to $34,000 from $31,000. The change is attributed to the new minimum wage law in Washington state, which raised the starting lifeguard pay from $9.49 per hour to $11. The pool has seven lifeguards on staff each summer as well as part-time helpers for swim lessons.

“I'm all for folks getting compensated. This is a direct result of the increase in minimum wage. That's okay; we have to compensate for that,” said Michael Echanove, Palouse mayor.

The $44,000 streets maintenance and oiling levy is the same as last year and would go to taking care of arterial streets and oiling gravel roads to keep dust down. One-fifth of the levy amount would go to oiling.