Politicking the Palouse
And he’s picking up trash.
“I promise I won’t get too OCD about it,” Echanove said, quickly bending to grab a yellow Dots package. A couple of steps later he dives for a ketchup-smeared napkin. “Yes, I pick up trash. I do this all the time.”
Echanove has been mayor of Palouse since 2001 − a seemingly impossible feat when compared to Spokane, which has not re-elected a sitting mayor since David Rogers won a second term before Expo ’74. Include Echanove’s years as a council member and he’s served 21 years in City Hall.
“I never thought I was going to do it for this long,” Echanove said, sounding almost apologetic. He is soft-spoken and, unusual in an elected official, appears uncomfortable with attention. He deflects praise and gives credit to other people.
“I’ve only had one challenger after I became mayor – all the other races were unopposed,” he said.
Echanove isn’t unusual for a small-town politician, who often serve for decades − sometimes because no one else wants to do the job. That’s not the case this year, with challenger Connie Newman campaigning against the mayor on a platform of tougher fiscal responsibility, budget cuts and more savings.
“I’m worried about the general fund running at a deficit,” Newman said. “We have to live within our means.”
Andy Meyer, special project coordinator for the Association of Washington Cities, said he hears from many towns that are having a difficult time finding candidates.
Partly it’s because the demands of public office compete with the demands of career and family, he said.
Nan Konishi, the mayor of Rosalia, is serving her first term after running unopposed.
“Some of us get in partially because no one else wants to do it,” Konishi said. “It’s a 24/7 job and you are very visible.” She added that when a town finds a good leader it’s a good idea to hang on to that person because replacements may be difficult to find.
“And we certainly don’t do it for the money,” Konishi said. “No one in these positions gets paid a lot.”
The mayor of Palouse makes $250 a month − that’s up from nothing a couple of years ago when budget cuts made it necessary to temporarily cut the salaries of the City Council.
“The City Council went without pay one year,” Echanove said. “That’s dedication.”
Palouse is a short commute from Pullman and its large employers like Washington State University and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. There are few jobs in Palouse, Echanove said, but also little unemployment.
“People live here and work somewhere else,” Echanove said. “Your neighbors are well-educated people.”
Like many other small towns, downtown has contracted to just a few blocks of a lively, yet vulnerable, business district. A grocery store remains, as does an actual payphone, which comes in handy because of the spotty cellphone service in town.
A funky vintage shop sits on one corner, and a two-story art gallery and bistro fills the old bank building near the river.
The Green Frog Cafe, co-owned by Echanove’s wife, Paula, features coffee and pastries, and a popular open mic night. Down the street the newly opened Palouse Caboose serves draft beers and barbecued pulled pork sandwiches on picnic benches out front.
There’s still an empty space where a huge fire last year leveled the recently renovated Brick Wall Bar and Grill, the day before it was to reopen.
Bud Bagott and his family have operated Bagott Motors for more than 80 years in and around Palouse.
“It used to be that you couldn’t find a spot to park downtown on a Saturday,” Bagott said, reminiscing. “We had a movie theater; no one else had that. People came into town to shop.”
Bagott said that 50 years ago the town had five restaurants, three grocery stores, four places to get your car fixed and at least two places that repaired farm equipment.
“It’s not like that anymore,” Bagott said, standing on the street corner where the restaurant burned down. “But we have a nice downtown. We are lucky. Many small towns don’t have what we have.”
A flood devastated the downtown area in 1996, and Echanove said when he took office five years later, streets and sidewalks were still sunken and cracked from the floodwater. Ailing and failing infrastructure below the old streets posed another huge challenge.
“The 1980s and ’90s were hard on small towns. People just drove through here as fast as they could,” Echanove said. He pulled together a downtown renovation plan securing $2.5 million from seven funding partners and finished a cleanup project that began right after the flood.
“And we did it right,” Echanove said. “We put the stuff in the street that has to be there before we repaved the street.”
Where an old hotel block was torn down, a new community center was built with the proceeds from Haunted Palouse, the town’s annual Halloween haunted house.
Across the street, new public restrooms are open year round, and a brownfield left behind by Palouse Produce is in the last stages of a million-dollar cleanup project.
Echanove doesn’t want credit for all of it.
“People show up and help out every time we need it,” he said. “That’s one thing that’s great about small towns.”
Newman, 48, is supportive, even complimentary, of all the work Echanove has done, but she’s worried about the future.
“We can’t be spending more than we are making,” Newman said, sitting outside the Palouse Caboose. “We’ve had a significant loss of tax income, and the general fund is running at a deficit.”
Newman led a volunteer group that developed the water system plan that recently was completed for Palouse, and she said the town may need a new water tower.
“That could be as much as $500,000,” Newman said. “The city needs to be more financially accountable.” It’s important to have reserves, she said, so the city can fund its part of state and federal matching grants. She added that budget cuts have to be made, but with a city staff of eight people, including law enforcement officers shared with nearby Garfield, she’s reluctant to say where.
“We will have to do an analysis of where we may be able to cut staff,” Newman said. “We need to look at every place where we can save money so we can build up a rainy day fund.”
And although Newman doesn’t want the city to be in the business of running apartment complexes, she said a lack of affordable housing is a big problem.
“The city has not accurately identified the needs of the people here,” Newman said. “The elderly can’t afford to stay; young people can’t afford to stay. We need to have that conversation.”
Newman’s roots are five generations deep in Palouse and Garfield. She’s a tall woman with a commanding presence and an easy smile.
“I’m not all doom and gloom, I’m excited about this opportunity,” Newman said.
She’s on the board of the Palouse Skate Park, which is the brainchild of Aaron Flansburg, who’s finally getting to build the park of his dreams on a piece of donated land just north of Main Street.
Newman said several people have encouraged her to run, and she feels the time is right even though she’s facing a tough incumbent and a somewhat steep learning curve if she’s elected.
“But I understand the role of the mayor,” Newman said. “And I can treat this as my full-time job.”