Last night La Conner’s town council met an hour early to discuss the town’s 2022 budget, which they will pass in December. They started with the big-ticket items: the sewer system and wastewater treatment plant and the parks, facilities, streets, water and drainage infrastructure that public works manages. None of this is glamorous, as much as President Biden and Congress have talked about it this year. It is expensive at every level, and more expensive than local and state governments can handle on their own.

Last year La Conner budgeted almost $3.5 million to spend on public works mai...