Officials in the Chehalis River Basin will have to continue their work without the leadership of one of their longest and most unflinching supporters.
Grays Harbor County Commissioner and staunch flood mitigation advocate Vickie Raines announced during a Chehalis Basin Flood Authority meeting on Thursday, Jan. 15, that she would give up her seat on the regional flood and fish oversight committee known as the Chehalis Basin Board, where she served as a representative of the flood authority.
She would also have to give up her position as chair of the board.
The Chehalis Basin Board is an oversight authority for the Office of Chehalis Basin, which is responsible for funding and organizing projects designed to mitigate flooding and restore fish and wildlife habitat. Raines has served on the Chehalis Basin Board since its inception and has perennially been nominated as the board’s chair. Her current term is supposed to extend through 2028, but that would be cut short by her resignation of her seat on the board.
The announcement from Raines comes as she appears to be taking a step back from many years of public service. In November, she announced that she would decline any nominations to chair the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority, effectively stepping down from the chair position of the regional flood authority that she has led for more than 14 years. At the time, she broke the news with a small pun and nod to her own surname.
“I have served as chair of the flood authority since 2011 and it’s time for me to pass the reins,” Raines said. “No pun intended. Well, maybe a little bit.”
A month later in December she also announced that she would not seek reelection to her seat on the Grays Harbor Board of County Commissioners. She is currently nearing the end of her third four-year term on the board of commissioners.
During her announcement of stepping down from the leadership of the flood authority in November, she advocated for the nomination of the authority’s Vice Chair Edna Fund to the chair position.
Raines served as chair one last time during the Jan. 15 flood authority meeting, during which the members of the authority seemed to honor her request to nominate Fund and elected her to the position as chair. The authority also nominated and elected Hoquiam City Administrator Brian Shay as vice chair of the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority.
After the business of the meeting and announcing her desire to give up her seat on the Chehalis Basin Board to another member of the Flood Authority, she nominated Shay to take that seat in the future.
At the end of the meeting, members of the flood authority shared their comments and well wishes for Raines as she served her last meeting as chair.
“People in this basin for a century fought with each other over these issues, but since Vickie started working, people have worked together to get projects on the ground and in the pipeline,” Chehalis Basin Board member J. Vander Stoep said. “Vickie likes to say, ‘Oh, I don’t drill into science.’ Maybe so. All she does instead is inspire trust and cooperation in other people and bring them along in collaborative processes.”
