Bill Crossley is candidate for Odessa mayor's job

Bill Crossley has spent most of his adult life in Odessa, even though his birth and youth took place elsewhere. He was born in New Jersey and raised in New York state. As a young adult he heeded the call, “Go West, young man.” After spending a couple of years in Arizona, the relentless heat drove him northward. Because he had an older brother stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, he ended up in eastern Washington. His father had also come west by that time and had somehow or other discovered the small town of Odessa. He bought a house here and settled in.

Crossley stayed with his father for a time and also found Odessa to his liking. He found a job as a member of the town’s public works crew and stayed with them for 17 years before moving to work for the Odessa Trading Co., his current employer.

Always civic minded, Crossley has, over the years, been a member of the Odessa Chamber of Commerce board of directors and has served as the Biergarten chair during Deutschesfest. He was also a member of the ambulance crew for 10 years and served as a fire fighter for 17 years.

At the same time, he met and married his wife Chris and raised a family. Oldest son Easton lives in Liberty Lake and works for Comcast, second son Kolby works for ABC/Fox in Bozeman, Mont., and daughter Kassidy is a junior at Odessa High School.

Seeing the deteriorating condition of the town’s streets, Crossley recently ran for a position on the Odessa Town Council to see whether he could help get improvements made. He began attending council meetings regularly even before being elected to his position, trying to get up to speed on what items were on the agenda and what council members were discussing.

Once elected, he soon discovered that the major roadblock, so to speak, to better roads was lack of funding. The council seemed to be constantly searching for grants and loans to help them make improvements. Council members began to feel that their engineering firm at the time was not doing all they could to help out the town with its funding issues. So, early in Mayor Lois Hubbard’s term, the decision was made to engage a different engineering firm. As a result of that change and some help from mother nature in the form of a harsh winter that raised havoc with the town’s streets, federal and state money has been allocated for several road projects in Odessa, most of which will also involve replacement of aging and leaking water lines that have been in place since they were first installed many years ago.

Having worked for the town crew and being very familiar with Odessa’s roads and what is beneath them, Crossley feels that he can bring valuable expertise to the many projects that are even now in the planning stages. If he is elected mayor, he says, he will ensure that the planned projects proceed without delay, and he will work with the other council members and the engineering firm to ensure that the town is able to take advantage of any available funding for small municipalities.

Although Crossley is still part of the work force, he says he is willing to give up lunch times and after-work time to handle town business. His boss at the Odessa Trading Co. has also given his blessing to Crossley’s bid for the mayor’s job.