LA CENTER — Inside La Center’s newly revamped Wheel Club Community Center on Tuesday, Mayor Tom Strobehn thanked 20th Legislative District lawmakers for securing $250,000 for the project to remodel the building, as well as $400,000 for downtown infrastructure work.
He also praised the legislators for sponsoring and passing House Bill 1039.
That legislation, signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson in May, will allow La Center to utilize wastewater infrastructure installed nearly a decade ago to provide sewer services to the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s nearby reservation lands.
In the past, Washington’s Growth Management Act prevented cities from providing urban public services, such as water and sewer, to areas outside their urban growth boundaries.
HB 1039, sponsored by 20th District Reps. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, and Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, during the 2025 legislative session, carves out an exception to the state’s rule and will allow cities to extend public services to neighboring tribal lands located just outside those cities’ urban growth boundaries.
“This is a practical step forward that will directly benefit local communities,” Abbarno said in February, after the bill passed unanimously in the Washington State House of Representatives. “It’s the kind of collaboration that respects tribal sovereignty, honors local decision-making and meets the needs of growing areas.”
On Tuesday, Strobehn recognized Abbarno and Orcutt, along with Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, who also represents the 20th District, for their teamwork during the 2025 legislative session.
“The city would like to express genuine gratitude for the hard work and success throughout the 2025 legislative session by La Center’s legislators to improve our community,” Strobehn said.
In his speech, the mayor highlighted the state legislators’ work passing HB 1039 and securing $400,000 to support La Center’s Downtown 2.0 redevelopment project.
“This is your democracy at work,” Strobehn said, gesturing toward the three legislators, “and these are the people that are making it happen.”
Before his speech, Strobehn told The Columbian that he was proud of the way the city, state legislators and Cowlitz tribal leaders had worked together to help pass HB 1039.
“Our relationship with the tribe is super tight. It’s beautiful,” Strobehn said. “But if you go back five or six years ago, there was no relationship really.”
Building a new relationship with Cowlitz tribal leaders, Strobehn said, made a difference when it came time to testify in front of state senators in February about the importance of HB 1039.
The bill, Strobehn said, was initially meant to include just La Center and the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, which have been trying to nail down a sewer-sharing agreement since 2016, but legislators decided to extend the bill to include other Washington cities in similar situations — with tribal reservations located just outside their urban growth boundaries.
Strobehn said the city and Cowlitz Indian Tribe are still working on an agreement that could extend sewer services to the 152-acre Cowlitz reservation on the west side of Interstate 5, as well as property on the east side of the highway — some of which is within La Center’s city limits — that the tribe purchased in 2016 and placed into a trust in 2024.
The tribe said last year that it hopes to develop that property into a commercial development with retail, hospitality and service businesses that will serve “as an exciting gateway to both La Center and the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s reservation.”
