Photo of the Creekside respite center from the Columbia Care website. Mid-Columbia Center for Living is considering purchasing the care facility as it has closed due to lack of staff.
Photo of the Creekside respite center from the Columbia Care website. Mid-Columbia Center for Living is considering purchasing the care facility as it has closed due to lack of staff.
HOOD RIVER — For those interested in development of the Upper Valley, County Administrator Jeff Hecksel shared that they have been approved for a grant towards reliable workforce housing in Odell. Though the exact amount is yet to be announced, the application was for $100,000 towards planning and housing and expect the awarded amount to be in that range.
Other Upper Valley development plans were also impacted by a recent inspection from a third-party civil engineer. Hecksel informed the board that, during the review, it was discovered that the wastewater treatment plant cannot handle much of a population increase without significant investments and upgrades. The capacity for development in Parkdale and details like plot sizes will be limited due to this review.
Hecksel reminded commissioners about the upcoming deadline to provide feedback or raise issues with the revised wildfire hazard maps. These maps utilize GIS mapping to create an interactive webmap for accessibility and ease that the community can access online.
Commissioner Les Perkins of District 4 mentioned that meetings with the wildfire workgroup led by Sen. Elizabeth Steiner have been successful and intensive. They meet at least twice a month with reading and research preparation prior; the group is determined to find funding opportunities for wildfire mitigation and learn details of wildfire mandates. Finding funding proves difficult without a full-time employee to monitor and con-sider the many state and federal wildfire laws and grants available. Due to many moving parts and sensitive opinions, these are closed group meetings for the time being.
“We have agreed that we aren’t going to talk specifics about what we’re talking about,” Perkins said. “[We’re] purposely keeping the group relatively small and making it a space [for] folks who might have interesting or difficult topics they want to talk about ... until we actually get through and come up with some solutions.”
District 1 Commissioner Leticia Moretti shared that the Correction Department has had a 10% budget reduction and are working to adjust to this decision. She also mentioned that the Mid-Columbia Center for Living has had several emergency meetings lately, one of which was to discuss purchasing a space in The Dalles called Creekside, an emergency respite care center.
Creekside offers nine total residential beds, three of which Hood River County were paying to use. However, the center is closing due to lack of staff, so the Mid-Columbia Center for Living plans to enter into negotiations to buy the facility. “My concern is that we aren’t adding anymore staff but we’re adding more responsibility. But we also can’t have this opportunity not be available for community members … It’s a great deal and it’s a necessity in the community,” she said.
District 2 Commissioner Arthur Babitz informed the board that the Community Action Council will be merging with Hood River Shelter Services. He also shared that the bistate bridge committees are all off to a busy start, mainly focusing on an early October lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., to find funding and make grant connections for construction of the new bridge.
The bistate bridge authorities are asking for hundreds of millions of dollars towards the project and expect to apply for all grants in the cycle so that funding sources can later determine which grants are most fitted for the new bridge. “[This] hopefully means that we will, at the end of the day, get some combination of grant funding which is adequate to keep our project on schedule,” Babitz told the board.
Babitz recounted his time with Hood River High School Class of ’59, who gathered to share their memories at the County History Museum, particularly involving stories of the Historic Columbia River Highway. Some of their stories will be included in museum tours and along the Historic Highway trail. One other update from Babitz was an invitation to join a statewide cyber security committee to access new security practices, methodologies, and funding.
During the public comment section of the meeting, Tracey Tomashpol asked the commissioners to apply for wildfire mitigation grant money that has a deadline of Oct. 31. She also brought attention to the fact that the county’s current wildfire plan is from 2006, but mitigation grants are only available to counties with plans less than 10 years old.
Similar grants are available to help update county plans and would, in turn, make Hood River eligible for further mitigation grants. She mentioned factors like tourism, language barriers, larger populations, and new technologies that all play into the need for updated wildfire infrastructure, alerts, safety, and mitigation plans.
Together, Executive Director of Columbia Area Transit Amy Schlappi and Mobility Manager at Mid-Columbia Economic Development District Kathy Fitzpatrick provided updates on the Gorge Regional Transit Strategy and grant awards. Details on their presentation will appear in a separate article for further depth.
September’s Work Session for the Board was succinct, consisting of only a few issues such as an update on the search for a new County Administrator. With consultation and vetting by Prothman, a second round of 21 applicants was gathered with roughly half making it past the first round of interviews. Finalists will be inter-viewed on October 13 with a public meet-and-greet the day prior, Oct. 12, at the Best Western Plus in Hood River.
The county received notification from the Oregon Audits Division that the Parkdale Sanitary District has failed to file audits for the last three years. The Sanitary District sent out a statement that they expect their auditor to be caught up by the end of October, but if audit delays continue the County can either initiate dis-solution or work with them to get back on track.
At the start of the meeting, the district attorney gave her quarterly report to the Board of Commissioners; a story will appear in an upcoming edition with more detail on that report. The Consent Agenda for September was accepted as presented by commissioners and an executive session regarding property transactions also took place at the end of the meeting.
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