The Lebanon City Council unanimously agreed to move forward toward a possible local option levy during its meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 11.
The $1.7 million levy would fund the reopening of the municipal jail for five years. The first step, though, would be to hire a consultant who could help determine whether placing the measure on the ballot could prove favorable.
“They do random polling of multiple members of the community,” City Manager Ron Whitlatch said.
The cost of the consultant could be as much as $50,000, or less, depending on polling responses and whether the council wants to pursue more polls or town halls.
“You cannot put a price on your safety and security,” Councilor Dave McClain said. “When people start talking about ‘well, it’s gonna take this much or these few dollars to accomplish this goal,’ I just come back to my original thinking: you just can’t put a price on it.”
Champion Mill Cleanup
Whitlatch informed the council that city staff have begun doing a clean up at the old Champion Mill site. The property owners, he said, provided dumpsters and police have been out there to help.
By the time of the meeting, the city had filled four 30-yard dumpsters with more to come.
“It is a definite mess and some of the pictures I’ve seen, it’s amazing to me that we’ve got that going on,” he said.
Mayor Ken Jackola clarified it’s been a long process to get to this point as they worked priorhand with stakeholders and property owners, and offered services to people living on the property (all of whom refused, he said).
In answer to a question posed by Councilor David McClain, Whitlach reported the property owners are paying for the dumpsters, and an agreement is in place that they will also pay for the labor and service, or a lien will be placed on the property.
“It’s in such disarray that we gotta do something with it,” he said. “The property owners didn’t have the mechanism to do that. It’s not necessarily the city’s responsibility financially to do this. That’s why we’ve set it up the way we have.”
According to Whitlatch, the city will continue to keep the property cleaned and mowed down.
“The encampment back there was massive,” he said. “We did let them take stuff with them and we tried to work around their stuff so that they could take it, but they’ve also been given notice and we gave more than ample time of that notice.”
In other business:
- Marcellus Angellford was sworn-in as councilor for Ward 1.
- Council awarded GMP Amendment No. 2 for the Cheadle Lake Park Improvements Project to Knife River in the amount of $3,478,138. It includes ADA-accessible parking, a paved parking lot, ADA multi-use paths, an ADA-compliant restroom facility, site lighting, and infrastructure necessary for irrigation and future power needs.
- Whitlatch reported the city is preparing to put in a capital funding request to the state for the wastewater plant.
- Jereme Guenther, member of a local Ham radio group, presented MeshCore, an open-source off-grid emergency communication system that connects bluetooth on a users smart phone to work like a text message app. “If the cell towers go down and you have no other means of communication, you can get on this device and you can text a local Ham radio operator who can then get your message out to the world.” Guenther wanted to make the public aware that the system is available in the Lebanon and Sweet Home area at an “inexpensive” cost.
