Palouse turns down funding package for water tower

After an e-mail arrived Friday morning, Aug. 10, at Palouse City Hall with an offer of $2.7 million in funding from the USDA for a water tower project on the south side of Palouse, Mayor Michael Echanove turned it down due to the terms of the package, no time to discuss it with the city council and more.

The offer came in at the nine o’ clock hour, with directions from the Washington state USDA that it would need to be signed by noon.

“They didn’t really give us any notice this was coming,” said Kyle Dixon, city administrator. “The interest rate, first of all, wasn’t anything the city was inte...