PULLMAN — The Pullman City Council confirmed the appointment of a new planning director Tuesday, a month after longtime Director Pete Dickinson retired.
Ryan “RJ” Lott accepted the position last week. He’ll start his new job at the end of August.
Lott is the planning manager for Chelan County, a position he’s held since October of last year. He previously served as planning manager for the city of Moses Lake and community development director for Entiat, Wash.
In his resume, Lott described himself as “a people person who strives to see his staff succeed, both personally and professionally.”
His starting salary will be $8,287 per month, or $99,444 per year.
In other action:
The council authorized an application for $21 million in Federal Aviation Administration funding to support design and construction of a new terminal building at the Moscow-Pullman Regional Airport.
The local match requirement of $1.85 million would come from funding the airport received to help deal with effects from the coronavirus pandemic.
Following a lengthy discussion about the pilot angle-parking project in downtown Pullman, the council directed city officials to remove the bike lane and jersey barriers on the south side of Main Street. Some councilors felt the jersey barriers did nothing to help beautify the downtown core, and the bike lane was useless as it “goes from nowhere to nowhere.”
The back-in angle parking was panned as well, with several councilors saying they hadn’t received any positive comments about them. However, they decided to continue the experiment for another couple of months, to see if removing the jersey barriers and providing more room for backing in would help drivers overcome their aversion.
Finance Director Mike Urban provided an update on the fiscal 2020 budget.
Through the first six months of the year, he noted, general fund revenues are running at 47 percent of budget, or $10.99 million. General fund expenditures are running at 40 percent or $10.17 million.
However, that’s partly because $1.36 million in “intrafund” transfers weren’t made in June. Had they taken place, expenditures would have been $11.6 million, or 46 percent of budget.
Urban said the transfers pay for things like information technology and other services shared by multiple departments. Postponing the June transfers “keeps the balance sheet a little stronger in the general fund,” but will catch up by the end of the year.
Liquor and marijuana revenues are up 22 percent year-to-date, he said, or $49,266. Hotel accommodation tax revenues, by contrast, were only $4,000 last month.
“Normally at this time of year, it’s running around $30,000,” Urban said.
Mayor Glenn Johnson encouraged Pullman residents to go online, to https://2020census.gov, to fill out the 2020 census.
“We’re still not doing very well with the census,” he said. “Pullman is at 56.4 percent (self-reporting), and Whitman County is at 58.3 percent.”
Census population figures are used to redraw political district boundaries, and to distribute billions of dollars in federal grants and funding.
Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208)-791-9168.
