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Deputy City Manager Carrie Rowe retires after 12 years; credited with water, sewer and capital projects
Summary
Deputy City Manager Carrie Rowe was honored June 2 by the Kennewick City Council for 12 years of public service during a reception and council meeting. Rowe outlined improvements including permit reform, a large aquifer storage project and roughly $220 million in capital investments.
Deputy City Manager Carrie Rowe, who has led the city’s public works efforts for 12 years, was honored at the Kennewick City Council meeting on June 2 and said she is retiring after a long career with the city.
"I want to thank you for the opportunity to serve the city of Kennewick," Rowe told the council in brief remarks accepting an award. She described efforts to change department culture, strengthen succession planning and hire professional engineers.
Rowe highlighted several concrete achievements during her tenure. She said the city overhauled the permitting process — relaxing some site‑plan requirements, instituting concurrent review and promising seven‑day turnaround for complete applications — to speed development reviews. She also recounted addressing significant deferred maintenance in the water and sewer systems, including a perforated pipeline under railroad tracks and a collapsed sewer pipe, and the development of water/sewer rate studies and recovery plans.
On capital work, Rowe said the city completed about 155 capital projects and invested roughly $220,000,000 in infrastructure, and that the city had leveraged about $65,000,000 in grants or low‑interest loans. She described the aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) effort as producing approximately 450,000,000 gallons of permanent storage after multiple cycle tests with the Washington Department of Ecology. Rowe also noted the city converted meters to a remote automated system using a public trust fund (about $12,000,000) in a multiyear approach that she said reduced the need for manual meter reads.
Council members praised Rowe’s tenure. Council Member Trumbo said Kennewick is “truly leading the way” on projects such as the wastewater treatment work and ASR, and City Manager Erdman thanked Rowe for accepting added responsibilities as deputy city manager and for her role in parks and facilities work.
After Rowe’s remarks the council recessed for a 10‑minute reception in her honor before resuming the regular agenda.
