Hundreds gather to hear annual State of the City address

Wednesday, March 25 | 11:00 p.m.
By ISOLDE RAFTERY, Columbian Staff Writer

Louise Tucker, the tiny woman many consider Battle Ground's de facto historian, doesn't pull punches when she tells the Battle Ground story.

"Battle Ground was first discovered in the 1860s by stalwart pioneers who tamed the land through logging and farming," Tucker told a packed audience at the 2009 State of the City address. "In the 1990s, Battle Ground was rediscovered. Growth was rampant."

On Wednesday evening, hundreds packed the city's new community center to eat food from a buffet catered by eight local restaurants. After food, they listened to city employees and elected officials walk through the city's "Past, Present and Future," the official theme of the address.

Mayor Mike Ciraulo had been thinking about the evening for months. He had asked Tucker to present the past, a slide show of newspaper clippings that heralded the city's gusto but didn't gloss over its tougher times.

Tougher times such as leaky sewer pipes, a failed parks levy, multiplying subdivisions and a part-time mayor who said, "This town doesn't need a bunch of fuzzy ideas; it needs action."

Not longer than 15 years ago, Battle Ground was contemplating more traffic lights.

But beneath the roughness is a resilience. An independent people who have weathered massive growth and taken pride in the fact that so many outsiders would want to populate their home.

The city "has its small cracks and irregularities and was built from the materials on hand at the time — the things which make it uniquely Battle Ground," said City Councilman Phil Haberthur, speaking to the city's "Present."

"The official census figures report that the population of Battle Ground in 2000 was 9,605," he continued. "Battle Ground would add 8,000 more residents before 2009."

These are the residents Mayor Ciraulo challenged to give back to the community during the economic downturn.

"More government is not the answer. People helping people will always be more effective," Ciraulo, a division fire chief, said. He said he's organizing a day of service with pastors and medical providers.

After Ciraulo read through the names of businesses and agencies that are scheduled to move to Battle Ground, he came full circle to Louise Tucker's version of Battle Ground, what he called "a microcosm of the American story."

"We have grown, we have certainly had our struggles," he said, "and ultimately we have become a more diverse and stronger community."

Isolde Raftery: 360-735-4546 or isolde.raftery@columbian.com.