Rosalia Mayor Konishi receives advocacy award

Gazette Staff

Rosalia Mayor Nanette Konishi in June became one of 11 recipients of the 2017 Advocacy All-Star Awards given out by the Association of Washington Cities in recognition of city officials who demonstrate exemplary dedication to advocating for their community.

Looking for small-town atmosphere, she and husband Yosh relocated their hand-made wood furniture and craft business to Rosalia in 2000. Within a few months she was asked to serve as Chamber of Commerce president, a role she accepted and served in off-and-on for six years. In 2006, she was asked to fill a vacant city council seat. Then in January 2014, she was elected Mayor of Rosalia.

During this time she has worked to re-tool the concept of Rosalia’s economic niche by exploring ways to promote growth despite the changing relationship between small, eastern Washington towns and the agricultural economy. In this effort she recognizes the potential for projects such as the John Wayne Trail in bringing revenue to Rosalia. She has worked locally and in Olympia to bring about partnerships not only with the bordering towns of Malden and Tekoa, but with bordering landowners, as well.

“This is something hiking clubs and biking clubs and equestrians would be interested in, and people who come here for that will visit our businesses,” she said. “The upkeep is something we could take care of as a community, but starting out it needs some initial, basic improvements.”

This type of creative commerce may be a key to re-invigorating the small towns of eastern Washington, but Konishi pointed out that at the heart of this is the advance maintenance of and improvements to existing town infrastructure.

“You can’t invite all these businesses to the area and then not have the infrastructure to support them,” she said. “That would be putting the cart ahead of the horse.”

Along these lines, recently the Public Works Trust Fund, which has provided low interest loans for infrastructure improvements since 1985, was on the chopping block. Konishi was vocal in letting legislators know the continued necessity of this program, particularly for rural towns, and ultimately the program was maintained.

“If I hadn’t (spoken up for it), then they might have just said ‘well nobody needs that, so we’ll take it’,” she said, reiterating the importance of being vocal to your elected officials about important issues rather than assuming a program will just continue.

In addition, Konishi said they work closely with their engineers to match town needs with grant opportunities. In recent years, these grant awards have contributed to important improvements in sidewalks and wastewater treatment facilities for the town.

Not only is Konishi proactive in accessing support for basic infrastructure, she believes small towns should have access to the same modern amenities that larger towns and cities have. In particular, given the increasing demand for online business presence, she has testified in Olympia for the importance of access to affordable, high speed internet in rural areas.

“I believe high-speed internet access should be considered a basic utility,” she stated.

Although Konishi works avidly as an independent advocate for her constituents, she appreciates the benefit of shared effort as a member of the Association of Northeast Washington Mayors.

“Working together, we benefit from (the impact of) speaking together as one voice. And we often have the same problems and this way we can hear how each other may have solved them,” she said. “That way we aren’t re-inventing the wheel.”

But whether working independently or in a group, Konishi believes in the power of the pen for making our voices heard as constituents.

“It takes time to write a letter, and we don’t always think we have that time,” she said, “but I will keep telling people, it does have an impact.”