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NEWPORT — Carole Richardson was not looking to become Pend Oreille County’s next Public Works director.
The owner of a strategic planning and consulting business for over a decade, Richardson moved to Newport two years ago. While Richardson was building a call list of potential clients in the Pend Oreille River Valley, she discovered that the former Public Works director, Craig Jackson, had retired.
“I saw the job description and I thought, there are a lot of parallels, a lot of alignment between what I’d done in the past and this job,” said Richardson, a 61-year-old public engineer with three decades of experience. “So I applied.”
She was hired, starting the job Thursday, April 2. The 40–50 person staff of Public Works are top-notch and dedicated, Richardson said, but the department still has challenges regardless.
“It’s gonna be tough to find ways to get things done given the funding climate,” Richardson said.
Much of Richardson’s work with the Idaho and Oregon state Departments of Transportation and municipalities around the Pacific Northwest focused on roads, she said. Like these clients, Pend Oreille County has challenges with funding roadwork.
With decreasing funding for roads due to inflation and shifts in tax revenue, Public Works cannot keep up with road maintenance or repairs, Richardson said. This forces the department to prioritize major roads, such as Deer Valley and LeClerc, over minor roads. As a result, some roads end up returned to gravel from pavement — an act Richardson considers a last resort after exhausting all other options.
“We aren’t the only county that’s looking at that and facing those tough issues,” Richardson said. “I know Bonner County from time to time has had to do that.”
During his tenure as director, Jackson proposed a few solutions for increasing funding: a levy lid lift, a sales tax increase via the establishment of a Transportation Benefit District and a vehicle tab fee. Each would raise an estimated $600,000 annually.
“They all should be on the table,” Richardson said. So, Richardson may propose a fourth solution: Road Improvement Districts.
Unlike a Transportation Benefit District, which would collect revenue from the whole county, Road Improvement Districts would collect revenue from certain residents who petition to fund roadwork themselves. When Richardson worked for the City of Spokane, she said they often used Land Improvement Districts, which similarly funded roadwork on residential streets and alleys. Land Improvement Districts have since gone underused due to inflation as well.
“It’s not gonna be super popular,” Richardson said of Road Improvement Districts. “But I feel like we need to have all the tools in the toolbox.”
To save money, Public Works may extend the recommended seven-year repair cycle to as long as 10 years for some roads.
“There’s those types of things to consider,” Richardson said.
Richardson also acknowledged the challenges Public Works has with snowplowing.
In the past, residents have complained about the department’s priorities regarding roads to snowplow during the cold months. With the county transitioning out of a mild winter, Richardson did not yet know of any changes to the snowplowing process, apart from a recent decision to prioritize school bus routes. When winter approaches this year, the department and their road crews will discuss it, Richardson said.
“The road foremen really know their districts well, and they know what works well,” Richardson said. “So we’ll be relying on them for a lot of those decisions.”
Aside from managing roads, transfer stations and other county infrastructure, Richardson has a few aspirations as Public Works director.
“At the moment, I’m just trying to get a handle on where things are,” Richardson said.
She sees a need to update Public Work’s Capital Improvement Plan, which would entail developing Jackson’s public engagement efforts and setting priorities for major projects. The department has not organized a major project in a while for lack of funding, Richardson said.
Public Works has a few data collection systems that may be modernized, including a pavement management system required for the department to earn some types of funding, Richardson said. The state board that provides those recommendations is switching to another system.
Nearing completion is a Public Works initiative to update county standards for engineering and road design — a critical resource for developers that Richardson said was last changed in 2007.
