Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Whitman County Commissioner Art Swannack traveled to Washington, D.C., Oct. 12 for the Oregon-Washington White House Conference of Intergovernmental Affairs.
A group of 120 county elected officials – commissioners, three sheriffs and others – went by invitation to the scheduled three-hour meeting, which featured short presentations and question-and-answer time with representatives from a list of federal departments.
Held on the grounds of the White House complex at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Swannack listened to Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, and various deputies of the secretaries of the Department of Transportation, Department of Education, Housing and Urban Development and Veteran’s Affairs.
“These people actually are there to help, make things work and solve problems,” Swannack said. “That attitude was felt throughout. I was impressed. It was better than I expected.”
During the event, Swannack thanked Anthony Bedell, deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Transportation, for his work on the Pullman-Moscow Airport runway realignment – a project which Swannack reports Bedell remembered. Later, the commissioner asked about flexibility in federal funding for gravel roads, noting he comes from a county with 1,100 miles of them.
Federal funding currently only goes to paved roads.
White House counselor KellyAnne Conway came in and spoke about National Prescription Drug Takeback Day Oct. 27.
A Department of Education representative talked on vocational education, and a school security “toolkit” being developed with the aim to send it out Jan. 1.
Zinke spoke about an effort to create a one-stop permit application system instead of the current process in which a landowner, for example, may be required to apply to several agencies on one proposed project.
Whitman County commissioners received invitations to the Washington, D.C. event in early September, for the series that has been running for 18 months, the Trump administration aiming to meet with local agencies in each state.
Bedell also talked about the president’s directive to eliminate two rules or regulations for each one added, telling the gathered that the U.S. Department of Transportation is on pace to cut six per each one they add.
Swannack returned home with a page from the Office of Intergoverrnmental Affairs that lists the local government contact person for each agency, which he gave copies of to commissioners Dean Kinzer and Michael Largent.
Kinzer and Largent had agreed before that Swannack would attend the meeting on behalf of the county.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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