Bridge Authority Commissioners

I’m Grant Polson. I own the Westcliff Lodge in Hood River; it’s a longtime family business for nearly 70 years. I've served as president of the local chamber of commerce. I'm currently a city councilor for the City of Hood River, and I've been on the budget committee for the last five years for the city. And I am a commissioner on the Bridge Authority.

I've served in a variety of functions, all volunteer positions, from maintaining trails and picking invasive weeds to helping create the budget and fiscal mechanisms and guide the direction of the City of Hood River, for example. These roles have helped me bring in a lot of different perspectives in terms of evaluating a healthy direction for the Bridge Authority to not only build but maintain and own a bridge for the community long-term.

I don't have too much of a personal connection to the existing bridge, aside from just driving across it. In some respects, that helps evaluate creating and building a brand-new bridge from scratch. It opens up the window of what's possible, what we can incorporate into the new bridge, for example, pedestrian, bikes, multimodal transportation, that sort of thing. We're not restricted or limited in terms of how we look at a bridge.

I understand that it's a vital link between Oregon and Washington and all the communities on both sides of the river. There's a number of folks who cross the river every day who work in either Washington or Oregon. There's a number of products and services that go across that river every day. And if we don't build or address that connection in a constructive way, then it continues to erode and weaken over time. So taking steps to build this new bridge to enhance the connection between our communities does nothing but serve our communities long term.

I hope to build a bridge that serves the community as a whole. It's a major piece of public infrastructure and every facet should be evaluated with that in mind, from the tolling structure, the financing structure, the maintenance and operational structure, as well as the construction methods and transportation modes it will serve once it's complete. We're making decisions not just for the community now, but for the community for the next hundred years.