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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 6, 2014)
6 city news november6 2014 City Department Updates: October 17- 31 ADMINISTRATION / UTILITY BILLING • 102 shut off notices were mailed out. Shut offs were scheduled for Wednesday the 22nd. Out of the 102 accounts still on the shut off list on Monday, 96 made payments, 12 called to say they would pay on Friday. Only six customers were shut off. • As of 10/23/2014 the outstanding balances were as follows: 30 days past due: $ 8,382.64 60 days past due: $ 2,791.33 90 days past due: $ 1,452.06 • 896 utility bills were mailed for a total of $124,104.78 billed. • While reviewing multi-unit dwelling accounts, staff noticed some inconsistencies in some accounts. These inconsistencies occurred when the new billing software was implemented. Staff is in the process of verifying the correct billing for these accounts. Findings will be presented to Council for information with the intent to have corrections made in time for the next billing cycle. • City Hall has been receiving many calls about burn permits: For information please call the Vernonia Fire Department 503-429- 8252. • As a reminder to our citizens: Waste Management Transfer Station is open the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month: 8am -2pm except Holidays. The location is off California Avenue. POLICE DEPARTMENT - VPD • October 10th, 2014 – October 16, 2014 – The Vernonia Police Department responded to (45) calls for service. • October 17th, 2014 – October 24, 2014 – The Vernonia Police Department responded to (61) calls for service. • VPD will have high school student ride along/s over the next few weeks. One is an exchange student that is doing a report about government and the other is doing the ride along for a Senior Project. The student doing the Senior Project will need a minimum of 20 hours ride time. • One resident in the 400 block of A St. has failed to correct Nuisance Violations and has been issued a citation. The property will be rechecked as we get closer to the court date. As of 10/24/2014 the resident that had not corrected the problem/s has made some progress, but all violations have not yet been corrected. • VPD has received a few other nuisance complaints that are occurring in the same area. The complaints are primarily about vehicle parking, e.g. vehicles parked the wrong way, vehicles left for long periods, and congestion. We are working on correcting the issues. • VPD policy updates are still in progress. • Reserve Police Officer Update: Last week I reported that we had only two applicants for Police Reserve Positions. However, after I had turned in my report, I received two more was scheduled for October 27th, 2014. • The Vernonia Police Department’s webpage was up and running well but it appears that someone was able to gain access to the admin page and created some problems and deleted some data. We believe the “hacking” has been corrected. We are working on repairing the data that was tampered with. • The first of the two new/used patrol vehicles is ready to be put in service and you will start to see it on the road. We are still working on the second one. In an effort to maintain low miles on the new vehicles, they will not generally be used for take home/on call duties unless needed for adverse weather. The vehicles may still be seen outside the city when necessary for the officers to transport people to jail, training, and court. FINANCE • Finance Administrator continued work on the funding process for the Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) project. It has been determined that DEQ will be the most cost effective source of interim funding. The application process has been started, but is not due until late November. • A meeting was held to update the City on the current status of the bid documents for the WWTP last Friday. City Administrator, Finance Administrator, and City Engineer were present. The bid documents are ready and the advertisement for bids has been prepared. As soon as we receive approval of the RFP from USDA we will advertise. • Of the nine applications that were received for the Librarian position, four applicants were chosen for interviews, which were held on October 28th. The interview panel consisted of the City Administrator, HR/Finance Administrator, Grant Williams-a member of the Library Board and the Librarian from the City of Clatskanie. We hope to make an offer before October 31st. • As a follow-up to the annual audit a couple of weeks ago our auditors (Grove, Muelle & Swank) requested some extra documents in order to complete the audit. Finance Administrator was able to produce all information requested and we should be receiving a draft of the audit soon. • Finance Administrator requested information from Ricoh, whom the City leases its copiers from, regarding a printer for the Library. Their current printer is extremely old and no longer has a service contract which means all maintenance and supplies have to come out of their budget. We are hopeful that Ricoh will be able to provide us with a new printer/ copier for them. The monthly cost covers all maintenance and toner. The Library charges patrons for printing and for making copies. These charges would cover the majority of the cost of the lease. Based on our current lease the cost will be minimal for the size of machine they will need. • ISOutsource (the City’s IT provider) informed the Finance Administrator of the need to upgrade the City’s server operating system. The operating system is six years old and will need to be upgraded in order to continue to receive support from Windows and receive software updates that keep our information safe from hackers as well as loss in the event of a computer failure. A quote for the upgrade and subsequent labor associated with it has been provided and was presented to Council at the City Council meeting on November 3. • The Finance Administrator has been working with Munibilling to provide our utility customers with the ability to pay their bill online. This has been a long time coming and we hope to have it up and running by the next billing cycle in November. Customers will be able to login to their utility account and will have the option of making payments each month or setting up for automatic payments to be withdrawn each month. Customers will also have the option of paperless billing – the option to receive their bill via email. • Finance Administrator met with Drew Davis of USDA Rural Development to go over the funding requirements. There is an extensive checklist of documents that need to be sent to USDA over the course of the project in order to receive the funds. Drew has been very helpful throughout the process. • Finance Administrator worked with Public Works Foreman to assess the staffing needs of the Public Works Department and the ability of the City to fill those needs. This is a work in progress, but we hope to have a positive outcome soon. PUBLIC WORKS • Public Works staff repaired a water leak on “G” Street. The leak turned out to be a very difficult one to locate and when it was finally located it turned out to be an old 1 inch black poly line that tees off to serve two homes. Public Works will be replacing this with two separate service lines, one for each meter. These service lines are about 250 feet long. • PW crew was presented with a problem with the street sweeper. The issue was found to be an electrical problem that took most of an afternoon to locate and repair. The sweeper is now repaired and it will be out 291 A Street call Kim Lovable service at a reasonable price • Bathing • Haircuts • Nail Clipping • Nail Polishing • Specialty Shampoos • Kitchen & Bathroom Remodels • Finish Carpentry • Ceramic Tile Work • Custom Home Construction • Additions • Commercial Tenant Improvements Jim Morrison, Jr. General Contractor CCB# 112057 Ph: (503) 429-0154 MorrisonRemodeling@hughes.net Vernonia, OR 97064 • Licensed • Bonded • Insured very often over the next few weeks sweeping leaves. Given the limitations of limited staff and ever present emergencies, the sweeper will not be out on a set schedule, but it will be out at least once on every street in town and some streets will be cleaned more than once, depending on the amount of trees and leaves on the ground. • We would like to remind our citizens that putting extra leaves from yards in the street or open ditches is not recommended. Extra leaves create clogging of the sweeper and create problems that require PW crew time for repair and afford less time for actual sweeping/cleaning of streets. In addition this time of the year leaves usually create problems by plugging up the water intakes at the water plant and causing raw water turbidity to increase, and other problems. • The maintenance staff is cleaning the roof gutters of City buildings. • PW Staff has been requesting bids for a security fence for Sewer Pump Station No. 1. Once all bids are in, a proposal will be presented to Council for review and approval. We anticipate installation of the fence within the next month. • Replacement lumber has been ordered for the repair of Anderson Park Play Ground Structure, and has been picked up. The repair work is a Volunteer Project with the Park Department supplying the material. This is a long overdue project. The play structure at Anderson Park was originally installed in 2001. Where did time go? • All three of the sewer’s pump station generators were serviced. This is a yearly preventative maintenance procedure that is contracted out. The generators must be in perfect working condition in case of a power outage. • Public Works staff continued to work on the water meter ground truthing project this week. It is a very time consuming project, but we hope to have it completed by the end of the month. • Water plant daily operations have been requiring a staff person to remain on-site full time. The first rainfall has affected the raw water considerably. The changes in raw water quality require constant minor adjustments of plant flow and coagulants. With the leaves falling, there are also times when the intake screen gets plugged up with debris, mostly leaves, requiring staff to physically rake the debris from the screen. There is an alarm that calls staff when the intake station runs low because the screen gets blocked. • Public Works will be changing the master water meter at Riverside Meadows. This compound meter is currently not reading the high water flow. A compound meter is really two meters in one as it has a small meter to read small amounts of water flow up to 30 GPM (gallons per minute) and a 4 inch meter to read the higher flows of over 30 GPM. The replacement cost of this meter is $2100. Time to replace this meter will take 2 or 3 staff the better part of a day to complete, not counting prep time. This meter change will also require turning off the water to approximately 30 customers while work is being done. Parts have not yet been ordered. • Public Works staff spent time exercising water valves around town. • The Water Plant was dumped for quarterly cleaning and maintenance. This task takes an entire day to complete. • Public Works staff replaced a water service on Stoney Point Rd. • Public Works staff has also been changing all of the sewer pump station computer settings to match the higher winter flows. continued on page 16
