city news
Sewer Loan Repayment Fee to Increase
By Bill Haack
Vernonia City Administrator
The Vernonia City Council
asked staff on April 2, 2012 to initiate
negotiations with the State of Oregon to
assist in the development of a Resolution
to adjust the sewer loan repayment fee
to pay the outstanding balance on DEQ
Loan No R93642. The sewer loan fee is
currently established by City Council at
$12.00 per month and is collected as a
part of the monthly utility bill. In 2010
the City Council established this fee to
cover interest-only on this open loan.
The monthly interest accrual is $10,000
whether we pay on the principle or not.
Over the past two years the
City Public Works Committee has
discussed adjusting this fee, feeling
that Vernonia residents needed to start
paying both principle and interest on a
fully amortized repayment schedule.
To repay the loan, the City will need to
increase the sewer loan repayment fee
by approximately $19.00 bringing the
monthly fee to $31.00 per month. This
retires the current debt of $4,300,000 in
twenty years. The question the Public
Works Committee raised and which City
Council acted on: What is the cost to
the community of not paying the fully
amortized loan payment?
The following report describes
how we got on this path and where it
will likely lead us in our journey to
build a new wastewater facility and be in
compliance with Federal rules.
When did we borrow these
funds? In 2005, the City of Vernonia
established a line of credit with the
Oregon Department of Environmental
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF VERNONIA
SUPPORTING THE FAIR HOUSING PROGRAM
LET IT BE KNOWN TO ALL PERSONS of the City of Vernonia that discrimination
in the sale, rental, lease, advertising of sale, rental or lease, financing of
housing or land to be used for construction of housing, or in the provision of
brokerage, rental services because of race, color, sex disability (physical
or mental) , familial status (children) or national origin is prohibited by
Title VIII of the Federal Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988. It is the
policy of the City of Vernonia to support the Fair Housing Amendments
Act of 1988 and to implement a Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988
and to implement a Fair Housing Program to ensure equal opportunity in
housing for all persons regardless of race, color, religion, sex disability
(physical and mental), familial status (children) or national origin. There,
the City does hereby pass the following Resolution:
BE IT RESOLVED that within the resources available to the
City of Vernonia through city, county, state, federal and community
volunteer sources, the City will assist all persons who feel they have
been discriminated against because of race, color, religion, sex, disability
(physical or mental), familial status (children) or national origin in the
process of filing a complaint with the Oregon Civil rights Division or the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Seattle Regional
Office compliance division, that they may seek equity under federal and
state laws.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the City shall publicize this
Resolution and through this publicity shall cause real estate brokers and
sellers, private home sellers, rental owners, rental property managers, real
estate and rental advertisers, lenders, builders, developers, home buyers
and home or apartment renters, to become aware of their respective
responsibilities and rights under the Fair Housing Amendments Act of
1988 and any applicable state or local laws or ordinances.
THE FAIR HOUSING PROGRAM, for the purpose of informing
those affected of their respective responsibilities and rights concerning
Fair Housing law and compliant procedures, will at a minimum include,
but not be limited to: 1) the printing, publicizing and distribution of this
Resolution: 2) the distribution of posters, flyers, pamphlets and other
applicable Fair Housing information provided by local, state and federal
sources, through local media of community contacts: and 3) the publicizing
of locations where assistance will be provided to those seeking to file a
discrimination complaint.
Adopted by the City Council on March 7, 2005.
Vernonia City
Council Meetings
and Closures
Upcoming City Council
Meetings are scheduled for:
Monday, May 21, 2012
Upcoming City Closures are
scheduled for:
Monday, May 28, 2012
Dates and times subject to change
due to conflicts of schedules
Quality (DEQ) accessing the Clean
Water State Revolving Fund. The loan
was established at $7,307,991 in April
2005; and was amended in March 2006,
adding $1,292,009, increasing the line
of credit to $8,600,000. The interest
rate is established at 2.93 percent per
annum. Repayment term is established
at twenty years. On this loan, repayment
technically begins when construction is
complete.
Why did we borrow these
funds? The City established this line
of credit for the purpose of completing a
wastewater facility improvement project
by 2007. The City pursued this loan for
the purpose of hiring an engineering
firm to manage the DEQ predesign and
final design process, purchase additional
land believed to be required for specific
aspects of the scope of the project, and
to initiate construction on the proposed
project. The City has been out of
compliance since the early 1990s and
DEQ was in 2005 poised to force the
City to make the improvement for the
City.
In 2005, the City hired
Kennedy-Jenks to complete DEQ
predesign and final design for needed
facility improvements. The DEQ loan
paid Phase One project costs including
engineering and construction drawings,
installation of two new pump stations,
pressure sewer lines from pump stations
to new head works at the lagoons, and
new head works at the lagoons. In
addition, land was acquired contiguous
with the wastewater lagoons for
$612,500 in March 2006; this purchase
was made using a grant through Oregon
Community Economic Development
Department under the Community
Development Block Grant Program.
Why is a wastewater facility
improvement project required? The
City of Vernonia has two reasons that
direct us to create a wastewater facility
improvement:
Compliance – The City releases
treated water from the lagoons into the
Nehalem River, but we are in violation
of our NPDES (National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System) Permit
which annually restricts this release
during warm weather months.
Capacity – To meet NPDES permitting
requirements, the City needs to increase
the capacity of the lagoon basin, with
our current lagoon design and method of
treatment.
The Kennedy-Jenks proposed design
would have developed a fourth lagoon
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2012
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that would have added capacity and
allowed the City to be in compliance
with EPA NPDES Permitting.
What
interrupted
the
process? As a result of the winter storm
and subsequent flooding of December
2007, it became clear that the design
proposed by Kennedy-Jenks was flawed
due to the inaccuracy of the 1988 Flood
Insurance Rate Map in effect at the time.
In early 2008, Phase two was scrapped
by the City. The direct impacts of the
2007 flood included a sludge removal
project of the lagoons as they were over-
topped requiring a biosolids removal
and reclamation project. Fortunately,
the City qualified for a State Special
Public Works Fund grant that covered
the cost of sludge removal and repairs
to the wastewater lagoons. However,
there was no modification in the design
and thus the search for an alternative
design option proceeded. The new cost
for a wastewater facility proposed by
Brown & Caldwell was estimated at
over $12,000,000 nearly doubling the
previous project cost. This cost was seen
as extraordinarily high by both the Public
Works Committee and the City Council.
During the subsequent several years the
Public Works Committee worked to find
alternate systems and a credible specialist
who could propose a more cost effect
alternative. In the end, a breakthrough
came about from a suggestion to
consider hyporheic discharge made by
DEQ in September 2011. Thus our path
became defined.
What has the City done since
the flood on the wastewater facility
improvement project? In 2008 the
City secured an Emergency Wastewater
Facility Improvement Grant from
the State of Oregon that was used to
complete alternative design options
that would assist the City rethink the
Kennedy-Jenks design. Brown and
Caldwell engineers were selected in
2009. Brown and Caldwell facilitated
a discussion with the City in 2009-2010
assisting us prioritize 13 options. This
grant fully funded this element of the
project.
In 2010 the City negotiated
an increase in the State CDBG Grant
wastewater facility improvement plan
grant increasing it to $1,213,000.
These funds are being used to fund an
engineering firm to complete the revised
wastewater facility improvement plan
that is looking exclusively at hyporheic
discharge infiltration. This grant fully
funded this element of the project.
continued on page 8
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