Thumbs up: Catlin Hall renovations
Old buildings have a character all their own. For such a well-loved building as Catlin Hall, home of the Kelso Senior Center, it was welcome news to learn that it was getting a $400,000 investment in its future.
As The Daily News reported earlier this week, Kelso City Council has officially awarded the construction bid. Work is slated to start in May and should wrap up within 40 days. While most of the work is focused on the exterior of the building, they are making sorely needed upgrades to the kitchen as well.
Councilman Jim Hill told us that “Catlin was a perfect use (for the money)” and we have to agree — it’s a great example of a partnership between a private group and a local government.
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The Kelso Senior Center Association didn’t just sit back and ask the city to fix all of the building. For years now, they’ve been using their own time and money to improve Catlin Hall’s interior and expand the facilities. But some tasks, like replacing a kitchen hood, were just beyond what they could reasonably accomplish on their own.
We hope they can get their additional funding request met as well, so they can repair the issues with their heating and switch over to modern LCD lighting. While we enjoy the charm of a historic building, there’s also value in using more modern materials wherever possible, to help save money on energy and better withstand the elements. We think these investments will set the building up well for the next 90 years.
Thumbs down: Boeing management
“Over the past several years, we’ve taken a number of significant actions to strengthen our safety practices and culture.” That’s from a statement that Boeing leaders made to the Seattle Times. And if that’s true, we shudder at what Boeing must have been doing prior to the 2020 investigation into company practices.
Boeing has been flying through turbulence seemingly non-stop since the troubled launch of the 737 Max. First grounded in 2018 following two deadly crashes, the subsequent government investigations found major issues with company practices and a general failure by the Federal Aviation Administration to oversee them. Having a door blow out of one of their planes in January and another dropping a wheel in March showed that there are still a lot of improvements to be made.
There’s been a lot said about the impact of manufacturing shortcuts on Boeing’s value as a company, the economy in general and, of course, people’s safety. If we ever got to sit down with Boeing’s leaders, we’d have to ask one question: what happened to Boeing, that it has fallen so far?
Boeing should be a name that fills people with excitement and awe. It certainly used to. The company created legendary aircraft like the Stratoliner, the B-52 and the current Air Force One, the 747. Boeing even helped put humans on the moon. But lobbying Congress for weaker oversight and cutting corners to boost their quarterly bottom line seem to be all the company cares about now.
Boeing’s close ties to Washington used to be something that filled the people of our state with pride. Now we’re left making excuses for the latest piece to fall off a plane. The departure of Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, announced last month, is a step in the right direction, but it can’t stop there. It’s time for Boeing to clear out the C-suite and start fresh with a new leadership team who can restore the Boeing we used to have, the one Washington could be proud of.
Thumbs up: New mental health center
State lawmakers have decided to fill the gap left by Daybreak Youth Services in Southwest Washington. As The Columbian reported, the state has allocated $16.2 million from the supplemental capital budget to purchase and staff the former Daybreak site in Brush Prairie.
It can be difficult to find an available mental health provider in the area, and narrowing that down to a specialized field like acute juvenile treatment just makes that harder. So we think this action was sorely needed in light of Daybreak ceasing operations. It’s unfortunate that the company’s nonprofit license had to be revoked, but patient safety cannot be sidelined just because an agency offers a needed service.
Much has been said about the opioid crisis and its effects on public health across our region. You need to look no further than the shocking rise of fentanyl overdoses in Cowlitz County from 2020 to 2022 to see the human cost. It’s our hope that more treatment, especially for kids, can be made available. Addiction is a disease, and like other diseases, treating it will save lives.