LCBRB to hear from citizens

The Lewis County Boundary Review Board (BRB) is having a meeting on June 1, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. at the Lewis County Commissioners Board Room in the old courthouse. All residents in the Winlock Urban Growth Area are encouraged to attend and speak if they wish. This is a regularly scheduled meeting for the BRB as they will be hearing other matters.

Lewis County Deputy Civil Prosecutor David Bailey has filed a motion to have the entire annexation thrown out. The reason is who is the agent of the annexation. In his motion, he states that the mayor is not the agent for the property owners who have requested the annexation. Bailey also included in his motion that Robert Webster can not act as an agent for the property owners either. If Bailey's motions are successful, Winlock will have to start their annexation process all over again. In the recent Winlock City Council meeting, Mayor Svenson can be heard criticizing and ridiculing Deputy Civil Prosecutor for the County, Attorney Bailey, for his use of the word "mmmm" during the hearing, apparently the Mayor counted the number of times Bailey paused and said "mmmm." His rant continued for several minutes and included others; it seems no one is safe once the mayor gets on his podium.

Winlock City Attorney Jim Buzzard has asked for a continuance based on information that he stated was not available to counsel at the time the motion was filed, stating that the BRB held information back. He is also asking that the Writ of Mandamus be approved. Attorney Bailey stated in his motion that most of the information was available.

During the hearing, Judge Toynbee had stated that Winlock had not exhausted all administrative options prior to filing their Writ of Mandamus and he ruled in favor of the BRB. Winlock has still not exhausted its administrative options and a hearing date has not been set.

If the City of Winlock's Annexation Petition is found that the mayor can not act as an agent, the money spent on consultation, engineering and attorney fees and everything else will all have been lost.