Rosalia Chamber seeks revitalization

--Jay Scholz photo

In this undated Battle Days picture, the car show overtakes Whitman Avenue in Rosalia. The Chamber of Commerce there has recently changed its structure and is preparing for the upcoming Battle Days, as well as seeking to help revitalize the town and surrounding communities.

The Rosalia Chamber of Commerce recently appointed a new president, and she is ready to get to work for the town and the surrounding communities.

“I'm a recent transplant to Rosalia, and we're excited about getting some things going,” said Oona McGuinness-Fischer, the new Chamber president.

McGuinness-Fischer moved to Rosalia from Spokane in September with her family, and she said she sees great potential in the town.

“I really believe in Rosalia and its surrounding communities,” she said. “There's been some reluctance at how to make ourselves a bit of a destination, and we're just right off the highway. We just really have to build it, and they will come.”

Moving from Spokane County to Whitman County, McGuinness-Fischer said she noticed the taxes here are about a third of what they are in Spokane County. This, she said, could be a great draw for businesses.

“That's a platform we'd really like to let people know about if they're considering opening a business,” she said. “And we really want to tap into the highway traffic and really get things going.”

McGuinness-Fischer said she has been meeting with Rosalia Mayor Nanette Konishi, and she wants to be able to build a strong relationship between the town and Chamber to get things going in Rosalia, Malden and Thornton.

“We're really looking at stepping up and making some actual progress,” she said.

Right now, plans are focusing on the annual Battle Days event in June.

“We just had our first planning get-together regarding Battle Days,” McGuinness-Fischer told the Gazette.

Plans there include continuing the annual car show at Battle Days and incorporating a beer garden with it. There could also be a pin-up girl contest, and McGuinness-Fischer said she wants to do something similar to the running of the bulls event.

“I don't know if it'd work, but I want to do a running of the goats,” she said. “I think it would be really a lot of fun.”

Events such as this, she said, are low cost options for getting the word out about Rosalia and the surrounding communities.

“We want to get our community seen,” she said.

With Battle Days, the Chamber is also seeking to draw a large variety of vendors.

“We want to get a fantastic selection of vendors,” said McGuinness-Fischer. “And we want to keep the cost low for vendors. We want a lot of vendors.”

The cost for vendors this year will be about $10, she said. Drawing a lot of vendors, she said, will be important to keeping people in town for the event.

“We want to keep some interesting things happening throughout the day,” she said. “We're trying to find out who might be interested and make it really notable.”

Also with Battle Days, the Chamber has decided to take on the process of float building for the float and royalty association. In the past, the task of the float building has fallen on the royalty and their parents.

“With different skill levels and other things, it has led to tears,” said McGuinness-Fischer. “So we're doing that now to help bring a little more consistency and continuity to the program.”

McGuinness-Fischer said she and a neighbor are working on a float for this year's parade. The float will have a Candyland theme.

Another thing the Chamber is looking into is a practice called “rose rustling,” a practice aimed at preserving varieties of roses growing unattended.

“We'd like to locate a rose specimen that would be a good candidate to be named after Rosalia,” said McGuinness-Fischer. She noted the seeds could be distributed to homeowners and area businesses to grow the roses throughout the town. “That would be a really neat draw for tourism and a way to beautify our area.”

Another item the Chamber is looking into is planning for new businesses.

“A lot of our buildings are unoccupied,” said McGuinness-Fischer. “We really have some fabulous space for business.”

The process of attracting new businesses will start with seeking a realtor for the unoccupied buildings and speaking with current building owners to see if they are interested in selling or leasing.

“We want to locate a realtor. That is really top of our list,” said McGuinness-Fischer. “We want to get somebody in that is dedicated to the task.”

Revitalizing the downtown will be a big task, said McGuinness-Fischer.

“We really love our downtown corridor and its character,” she said. “It's going to take that dedication. I believe in the viability.”

McGuinness-Fischer said she wants to start looking into grants to help with downtown revitalization. One program she is looking at is the Washington State Main Street Program.

“We could really benefit from that program as a community,” she said. “It could really benefit the businesses.”

Colfax has been a part of the Main Street Program for more than one year now, and through the program, business and operation taxes have been able to come back to the city to establish a storefront grant program to help businesses downtown revitalize. McGuinness-Fischer said being able to do something similar in Rosalia could be a huge draw.

“We don't have a lot of current businesses in Rosalia, Malden and Thornton,” she said. “With the B&O taxes coming back, those businesses we do have can then access that money back. That one is definitely one we're pursuing.”

McGuinness-Fischer said she knows the work in Rosalia and surrounding communities will take time, but she believes it will take dedication to make things happen.

“I really feel very passionate that this community and its surrounding communities really have a fighting chance. It's about prioritizing and using resources,” she said. “One of the reasons I wanted to live in Rosalia was because of its charm. There really is a lot of charm.”

She said she believes that tapping into that to make some changes will ultimately be beneficial.

“It's time for things to get a little different,” she said. “I'm looking forward to seeing what we're capable of.”