Aug. 9 Daily News editorial

The Longview City Council’s third vote was the charm. Longview and Kelso citizens will have an opportunity to say whether or not they want talks aimed at merging the two cities to continue. All seven council members showed up at Thursday’s special meeting and voted 5-2 to put the question on a November ballot.

The vote brought a welcome end to unnecessarily long and, at times, baffling deliberations over a straightforward resolution calling for the non-binding advisory election. Council members warmed up with a 4-1 vote on July 9 to bring a resolution saying how the ballot measure would be worded to the July 23 meeting. With two supporters of an advisory election absent, the council voted 3-2 on July 23 against holding the advisory election. Thursday’s special meeting and the third vote occurred at the insistence of Council members Mary Jane Melink and Dennis Weber, who had missed the earlier meeting.

Kelso City Council members, by comparison, were a model of efficiency. They agreed to the advisory election in just one meeting — held the day before the Longview council began its tortured consideration of the issue. Longview council members should have taken their cue from their Kelso counterparts, who were quicker to understand just what this advisory vote was all about.

More significantly, Kelso council members understood what the advisory election is not about — as we hope voters will in the fall. Citizens will not be ask to vote on whether Longview and Kelso should merge. The ballot measure will simply ask whether citizens believe city and county officials should continue exploring the cost-cutting potential of a merger. If the answer is yes, a citizen’s committee would be charged with producing a detailed merger plan within six months of the election. Citizens then would have an opportunity to vote again the following year on merging the two cities.

Again, the upcoming advisory vote only gives county and city officials a measure of public support for continuing to look for any money-saving potential in merging the two cities or selected city services. We believe that potential exists. As we’ve speculated previously in this column, talk of merging Longview and Kelso has persisted over the years because it simply makes sense. For practical purposes, the two cities are one logistically. Surely, eliminating the duplication of many services would reduce the cost of government for both Longview and Kelso.

In any event, continuing this process of exploring that potential is only sensible. County and city officials have been working hard for many months now to determine what, if any, money-saving potential exist. It’s a complicated and time-consuming process. Next fall’s advisory vote is not binding. But the people making this effort naturally want to know whether or not the public is supportive of their work. We believe this study holds significant promise, and urge voters to encourage county and city officials to continue.