Technical upgrades cushioned the pandemic blow

McBride said the city leaned on newly formed relationships with technical consultants as it moved to remote governance last year.

“It was pretty easy because we had this person on board and we’re like ‘OK, we’ve gotta go to Zoom, how are we going to do that?'” McBride said.

McBride said years of fiscal responsibility combined with the improved technology cushioned the blow felt by the city during the pandemic.

“Yes, we took a big hit, but because we’ve been prudent with putting money away for a long time, I think we’re going to weather this pretty dang well,” McBride said. “We didn’t have to lay people off because we were very prudent with saving our buckets of money in lots of areas for quite some time prior to this.”

The mayor said she is proud of city organizations’ work throughout the pandemic.

“They weathered this with so much patience and grace and tried to be equitable with our decisions that we made to help every group,” McBride said.

McBride said the city’s representatives with the Hood River County Chamber of Commerce have kept in touch with the business community. Hood River City Councilors Jessica Metta and Megan Saunders are appointed members of the chamber’s board. Hood River City Manager Rachael Fuller also serves on the board.

Hood River gave Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds to the chamber and United Way in 2020, McBride said.

“We didn’t feel like we were equipped to say, ‘Oh, well, this business should get money and that one shouldn’t,'” McBride said. “That’s their business. They’re great at it. Let’s just give them the money and let them figure out who should be getting it and how much.”

McBride said the city has been “trying to get back to normal” as it continues working on priorities like affordable housing and infrastructure improvements.

“We need to do more on our infrastructure, and we’re going to be starting on basically a 10-year plan and doing small sections of streets to do new water and sewer lines that need to be replaced,” McBride said.

“People will see some streets being torn up this year. Not too many at a time, we can’t afford too many at a time and we couldn’t disrupt the whole town all at once anyway.”

McBride said the city continues to work on plans for the seven-acre parcel on Rand Road it purchased in 2020.

The city is working with Leland Consulting Group to “prepare a development strategy” for the parcel located at 780 Rand Road, according to its website.

The strategy is expected to be finalized in June 2021. The city will then seek a developer for an affordable housing project on the site, according to the website.