Camas leaders highlight city’s strengths during 2022 State of the Community event

Camas is a city of hope. That’s the message Camas Mayor Steve Hogan delivered during his address for the 2022 State of the Community, held Thursday, Sept. 15, at Lacamas Lake Lodge.

“The city of Camas commits to preserving its heritage, sustaining and enhancing a high quality of life and developing the community to meet the challenges of the future,” Hogan told the crowd of about 50 people who had gathered at the city’s lakeside lodge to hear Hogan, as well as Camas School District Superintendent John Anzalone and Port of Camas-Washougal Executive Director David Ripp speak about Camas’ present and future.

“We want to talk about all of the great things that are happening, because, if we don’t tell our story, guess what? Somebody else will,” Anzalone said. “We want to celebrate the wonderful things our kids and staff are doing.”

Between Anzalone, Hogan and Ripp, community members who turned out for the annual, in-person State of the Community event received updates on ongoing projects such as the city’s lake management plan, which involves partnerships between the city and Clark County, the Washington State Department of Ecology and several other regional and statewide entities.

“A couple years ago, we said, ‘We need to step up and take action before we get too far down the road,'” Hogan said, referring to the ongoing water quality issues and toxic algal blooms in Lacamas, Round and Fallen Leaf lakes. “(Former) Mayor (Barry) McDonnell and our public works director, Steve Wall, said, ‘Time out. Let’s do this right.’ So we have basically worked not only as a city but with the county and Ecology … and we are now at the end of the second year of a 3-year plan.”

Community members also heard about long-awaited projects like the Camas School District’s newly renovated Garver Theater, which Anzalone said had a “soft opening” last spring and is set to have a grand re-opening on Wednesday, Oct. 19.

Hogan also discussed the sub-area planning happening in the city’s North Shore area northeast of Lacamas Lake, and said property owners in the North Shore first approached city leaders 17 years ago to discuss having the area — then part of the county — annexed into the city of Camas.

“In 2018, we decided to go through the North Shore Sub Area Plan,” Hogan said. The first phase of the North Shore sub-area planning included a vision statement showing what community members and stakeholders hoped to see in the unique, mostly undeveloped area. City leaders are now discussing whether they will move on to the second phase of that plan, which would include zoning changes and design codes that would be unique to the North Shore to help the area develop into the sort of walkable, sustainable, possibly more affordable, mixed-use area many in the community hope it will become.

“The property owners have had tremendous patience,” Hogan said, adding that “by October or November” the city will decide to “either fish or cut bait” on the final phase of the North Shore Sub Area Plan with city council members scheduled to debate implementing the second phase of the North Shore Sub Area Plan, which includes rezoning and new design standards, later this fall.

Ripp and Hogan talked about some future projects that foreshadow good times ahead for Camas, including the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act President Joe Biden signed into law on Aug. 9, that will invest $250 billion to boost semiconductor research, development and production in the U.S. and is expected to benefit Clark County semiconductor facilities, including the nLIGHT semiconductor facility in Camas.