Sean C. Morgan
This year, the Sweet Home City Council is making funding law enforcement, infrastructure and partnerships its priorities.
The council updated its goals in a work session on April 5, mostly deleting completed focus areas and refining those that remain.
“The main goal areas are the same,” City Manager Craig Martin said. Two focus areas were completed, including the creation of a youth advisory council and the establishment of a scenic byway through Sweet Home.
The council prioritized the remaining goals and focus areas.
Its top goal is the issue of funding for police and dispatch services.
The discussion centered on the additional impacts of decreasing property values last year on top of Measure Five (1990) compression issues, Martin said. “That being the top goal basically, the staff are committed to being more proactive to coming up with solutions to that.”
How the city will provide more funding to law enforcement remains uncertain, but it will certainly be at the top of discussion at the budget committee meetings coming up later this month, Martin said.
The council’s second priority is to find funding for the city’s sewer and water infrastructure, reflecting current efforts to replace deteriorating sewer pipes and replace the aging water treatment plant.
The council also wants to make sure that the city is able to deal with the infrastructure in the long term as well, Martin said. The city is on an October 2007 deadline to complete reductions in inflow and infiltration, which is mainly storm water that leaks into the sewer system and overloads the treatment plant in big storms.
The council wants to make sure the system can be kept up over the next 20 to 30 years so the community is not in the same position in the future, Martin said.
The council’s third priority is to emphasize partnership development, establishing and maintaining regional partnerships with agencies and organizations to help deal with infrastructure, facilities, programs and services, Martin said. Last year, the council began the idea of partnerships with School District 55 and helping fund pool operational costs during the summer.
With funding in general stretched tight, partnerships may provide opportunities to save money or provide funding, Martin said. For example, the city is looking at possibilities for siting a new water treatment plan with Dan Desler of Development by Design, which is proposing the development of a resort along the north edge of town. Sweet Home may also talk to Lebanon about issues ranging from storm water to waste water.
The council will discuss and adopt goals at its regular meeting on April 20.