Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Sweet Home residents and businesses moved a step closer to paying for a new storm water drainage utility Tuesday, Oct. 23 as the City Council held the first reading of an ordinance that, if approved, would create the utility, imposing a $4-per-month charge on households within the city.
Voting to initiate the ordinance reading process were Bob McIntire, Eric Markell, Jim Gourley, Mayor Craig Fentiman, Scott McKee Jr. and Jim Bean. Rich Rowley was absent.
The ordinance will be read two more times at the council’s regular meetings, held on Nov. 13 and Nov. 27. After the third reading of the ordinance on Nov. 27, the council can adopt the ordinance. The ordinance takes effect 30 days after adoption.
If the council adopts the ordinance, it will consider a resolution establishing a fee structure for the new utility.
The city has been discussing the formation of the utility for about four and a half years, City Manager Craig Martin said. Over the past 18 months, the discussion has been serious enough to hire a consultant to help set up the utility.
The ordinance and proposed fee structure are the result of the consultant’s studies and council work sessions, Martin said. “Mike (Adams, Public Works director) put a lot of work into this, I think, just to give credit to him and his staff, including engineering staff.”
The proposal is the result of council concerns about responding to citizen concerns about drainage, Martin said, along with increased development needs.
The ordinance will be charged to residences, Adams said. Each residence is counted as a single equivalent dwelling unit (EDU). An EDU is 3,200 square feet of impervious surface, an average based on some 400 units across Sweet Home, measured by engineering staff based on aerial maps.
All single-family residences will be charged for a single EDU regardless of the actual impervious surface on the lot, Adams said, based on the rate proposal that will go to the council later. Duplexes, apartments and other multi-family properties will be billed differently, based on actual impervious surface.
Gourley asked how the rate will be paid in the case of rentals. Adams told Gourley that the billing process is still being developed, but it would probably work much like it does with water and sewer, where the property owner is ultimately responsible for the bill.
Commercial rates will range upward from $7 per month for small businesses. Medium commercial properties will pay $12 per month, and large commercial operations will pay $68 per month, based on the proposed rate structure.
Some industrial property owners, such as Sweet Home Sanitation’s transfer station, may be exempt from the charge because they already pay the city a fee to send their drainage to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
Residential property owners may receive a credit if they can prove that storm water from their property is not hitting the city’s drainage system, Adams said.
In other business, the council:
– Appointed Lance Gatchell to the Planning Commission to fill a vacancy left by Karen Billings. Other applicants were Greg Korn, Nancy Patton and Daniel Holman.
– Reappointed James Reasons Jr., Frank Javersak and Dave Holley and appointed Daniel Holman and Greg Korn to the Board of Appeals, which decides appeals of orders, decisions and determinations made by the building official.
– Appointed Stefanie Gatchell and Daniel Holman to fill vacancies on the Parks Board.
– Appointed Kelsey Schultz to the Sweet Home at-large position on the Youth Advisory Council. Remaining vacancies include three at-large positions, ages 12-19, one at-large junior high position and one eighth-grade position.
– Recommended to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission the approval of a liquor license for Levi’s Place, 1302 Long St. Owners Jack and Lisa Betschart, doing business as Betschart Investments LLC, requested the new license. The city previously recommended approval for the license for Levi Loewen, who no longer owns but will manage the business.
– Authorized the police chief to contract with Feeney Wireless for all equipment necessary for the completion and testing of the Police Department’s mobile data terminal project, which will put mobile computers, networked to the station, into each patrol car. The cost is $53,772.95, not including installation, which will be completed later by the same company that installs other equipment into patrol cars.
The purchase “piggybacks” a Josephine County price agreement that calls for a manufacturer’s cost with no more than a 10-percent markup on Panasonic computer equipment, Chief Bob Burford said.
Burford told the council he thought the whole project would come in under the budgeted $80,000.
– Approved a bid award to apparent low bidder K&R Plumbing Construction Company for $3.1 million phase three of the city’s ongoing sewer line replacement project.
The project will include reconstruction of 1,750 feet of 8-inch pipe with cured-in-place pipe liner (CIPP); reconstruction of 12,358 feet of 8-inch pipe with CIPP or “pipe bursting;” 2,730 feet of new 8-inch and 12-inch pipe; upsizing 737 feet of 8-inch pipe by bursting or open cut; replacement or construction of 338 service laterals on private and public property; installation of 32 lateral liners; rerouting of 26 private service laterals to sewer mains in the public right-of-way; rehabilitation of 48 manholes; and construction of 32 new 48-inch manholes.
Most of the work is in areas east of 18th Avenue and north of Main Street.
The city is funding the project through loans from the state’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, with approximately $140,000 from a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant.