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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (May 8, 2019)
A18 NEWS Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, May 8, 2019 Grants Continued from Page A1 Recommended upgrades from seismic assessments are fully funded by the Seis- mic Rehabilitation Grant Program. Monument Superin- tendent/Principal Don- ald Petersen said the main building of the school, which houses offices and high school classrooms, is 70-80 years old and made of sandstone. He anticipates the pro- fessionals who assess that building for long-range planning will determine how much longer it will last. Petersen said they’d likely need to pass a bond in 10 to 20 years to make long-term upgrades. The conservative com- munity hasn’t passed a bond “in a long time,” he said, but the grants will at least allow them to plan for the future. Improvements for the short term include areas of the Monument elementary building where there is rot- ted siding, peeling paint and several large single-pane windows that need replac- ing, he said. “We know we need cer- tain repairs,” he said. “This (grant) establishes it profes- sionally, so if we need to, we can get a grant from the state and apply for a match- ing grant to do the work that we need to do.” The Oregon Legislature created the Office of School Facilities in 2015. As of last fall, the office had awarded $175 million in matching grants through the OSCIM Program and $4.1 million in TAP grants to school districts. In the 2019 round, 66 school districts were awarded 122 TAP grants totaling $2,925,000. Prairie City School 911 Continued from Page A1 Grant County Emergency Communications Agency went into operation Jan. 1 and moved into the John Day Fire Hall in April. Emergency dispatch ser- vice has been the norm in Oregon for nearly four decades. According to mate- rial presented by Findley, the Oregon Legislature man- dated the establishment of 911 emergency dispatch ser- vices in 1981, along with a 3 percent surcharge on phone fees to support the service. Ten years later, the sur- charge was increased to 5 percent. The Legislature con- verted the phone fees to a straight 75 cents per trans- action in 1995. Sixty percent of the collected revenue cur- rently goes to counties and cities to operate 911 dispatch centers, with a minimum of 1 percent per county. The statewide phone fees raised $45 million in 2018, with $27 million going to the cities and counties, but operational costs for all of the state’s 911 dispatch cen- ters is estimated to be $145 million. Committee hearings A public hearing for the bill took place before the Eagle photos/Angel Carpenter Prairie City School District Superintendent/Principal Casey Hallgarth stands in front of the entrance to the school’s cafeteria and main gym. The district received a $2.5 million seismic grant to make the building safer. Work is expected to start in June of 2020. District Prairie City School District received all four TAP grants. The $2.5 million seis- Donald mic grant, Petersen received after a previous assessment, will pay for upgrades to the cafeteria and gym. That work will begin in June of 2020. Superintendent/Princi- pal Casey Hallgarth said the TAP grants will help them implement a maintenance program. He said areas of focus for recent TAP awards include “the Bates build- ing, the roofs to all of our buildings, exterior and inte- rior conditions of all build- ings and developing a maintenance plan for our district to address the issues of our 100-plus-year-old building.” “These grants give us House Committee on Vet- erans and Emergency Pre- paredness on March 12, with 24 agencies providing testi- mony, including John Day City Manager Nick Green and Grant County Emer- gency Communications Agency Director Valerie Maynard. According to Green, when the city operated the 911 dis- patch center in Grant County, it was one of the smallest centers in Oregon “but also one of the most efficient.” Nonetheless, over the past two decades, the cost-reve- nue gap “grew to the point that it became operationally unstable,” he said. “While revenue measures are rarely popular, especially in a conservative county, we heard a consistent message during our attempts to pass the local ballot measure” to support local 911 service, he said. “Residents would much rather pay an addi- tional 75 cents per month in their phone bills than a dis- proportionate rate in their property tax base.” Maynard noted that rising costs and limited resources nearly forced the local 911 center to close, with dis- patch service outsourced to another county. “The cost to do business continues to rise every year, and yet we are still operating on a tax that is 24 years old,” the opportunities to have professionals come in and develop a sound plan and for us to budget for the near future and the long term,” he said, adding the long- range plans will include engagement with the com- munity to determine how to best meet educational goals for the next 20 years. Hallgarth said the Bates building could provide an all-day daycare, carpentry classes, a dormitory or an all-day preschool down the road. With upgrades, the stu- dents and staff could have reliable classrooms that don’t leak and are energy efficient, keeping cool on hot days and warm on cold days, he said. “It is amazing what a controlled climate in the classroom can produce against a classroom that is too hot or cold or has leaks,” he said. “It also offers the students and staff a safe environment.” He added, “At Prai- Grant School District 3 Superintendent Bret Uptmor stands in front of Humbolt Elementary School in Canyon City. Seismic upgrades were made to parts of the school, including the cafeteria, last summer. The district has been awarded a seismic assessment grant to determine if other buildings in the district need upgrades. rie City, we are committed to the safety and efficiency of our classrooms, and we want to get this started here as soon as we can.” Stacie Holmstrom, who is deputy clerk/business man- ager for Grant Education Service District and Monu- ment and Prairie City school districts, said the requests for proposals for the proj- ects for Monument and Prai- rie City, which she’ll be writing, will be sent out by June 1, and there is a list of approved architecture firms to complete the work. The assessments will take place during the next school year, which starts July 1. After receiving their assessment plans, schools can apply for grants through the OSCIM Program for a matching grant. “Schools will have to determine what they can do,” Holmstrom said. Grant School District 3 Grant School District 3 received a $20,000 facilities assessment grant, a $25,000 seismic grant and a long- range facility plan grant. All the buildings in the district will be evaluated, including Seneca School and the district offices, Superintendent Bret Upt- mor said. “The seismic TAP grant will assess our buildings for future seismic projects with the buildings that were not retrofitted with any of the previous grants,” he said. The district previously received a grant total- ing $1,235,940 for seis- mic work through former Superintendent Curt Shel- ley, who moved after the 2017-18 school year. The grant was for both Humbolt Elementary School and Grant Union Junior-Senior High School. Work outlined for Hum- bolt with that grant was completed last summer, and upgrades to Grant Union will begin May 13 with a short break during gradua- Opposing testimony The Eagle/Richard Hanners Cammie Haney works in the Grant County Emergency Communications Agency’s new dispatch center in the John Day Fire Hall on April 30. she said. “We do not have the resources to pull from in our rural county to support the increased cost share bur- den that is being put on our residents.” Testimony in support of HB 2449 came from repre- sentatives of the Association of Public Safety Commu- nication Officials, National Emergency Number Associ- ation, Oregon State Sheriffs Association, Oregon Asso- ciation of Chiefs of Police, Oregon Fire District Direc- tors Association and League of Oregon Cities, as well Grant SWCD Weed Control Dept. Working for You in 2019 Thanks to the Grant County Court and Northeast Oregon Forests Resource Advisory Committee, Grant Weed Control is able to offer a 50% Cost Share Program for Noxious Weed Control on Private Grazing Lands, through a Title II funded Grant Project. This program will provide a maximum $5,000 of noxious weed control services with a $2,500 maximum landowner contribution to qualifying participants. To be eligible for participation, the treatment property must not be actively irrigated and must be primarily managed for livestock grazing, minimum of 20 acres in size, located within Grant County, and must contain weed species listed on the Grant County Noxious Weed List. Applications for this limited weed control assistance opportunity will be funded on a first come first serve basis. Applications due by June 5th. Contact the Grant Soil and Water Conservation District Office at (541) 575-1554 or visit 721 S. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845 for applications and additional information. 117734 as cities and counties from across the state, large and small. The committee followed up with a work session on April 4, where it voted 7-1 to refer the bill to the House Committee on Revenue as amended. An amendment removed a provision that would have provided coun- ties with less than 40,000 residents 2 percent of the total phone tax revenue instead of 1 percent. Testi- mony in support of the bill was provided by eight more cities and counties. The House Committee on Revenue, where Find- ley is vice chairman, took up the bill with a hearing on April 22. Testimony was taken from at least 38 rep- resentatives of cities, coun- ties, emergency dispatch providers and communi- cations companies. Testi- mony in support came from metropolitan areas such as Portland, Eugene, Salem, Gresham, Hillsboro and Clackamas and Washington counties. Concerns about the bill were voiced by CTIA, a trade association for the wireless communications industry. CTIA noted that HB 2449 called for collect- ing $1.50 per phone bill for emergency dispatch, while Washington collects 95 cents, California collects 31 cents, Idaho collects $1 and Nevada collects 25 cents. Funding for 911 dispatch should be limited to “allow- able costs,” CTIA said, and not be used for “leasing real estate, cosmetic remodeling of facilities, salaries or bene- fits, or emergency vehicles.” CTIA also called for con- solidating 911 centers into regional centers “covering as large a number of local jurisdictions as can be effi- ciently served.” Verizon and T-Mobile representatives also testi- tion week. A new roof was added to the elementary school’s cafeteria. “Top to bottom, every- thing is tied together” with reinforcements in the ceil- ing, walls and flooring, Upt- mor said. Walls were also rein- forced in classrooms, and rock walls outside the school office were taken out. Since that removed seating, a couple benches were added in place. Five steel, U-shaped beams tie classrooms to the gym near the breezeway between the buildings. Uptmor said the facility assessment TAP grant can be used to assess the cur- rent physical condition of the facilities, determine the level of deficiencies and provide a rough estimate for repair costs. “The long-range facility plan and facilities assess- ment grant provide infor- mation to the Grant School District Board of Directors (including) direction and planning for the future of our facilities,” he said. Dayville School District Dayville School District received a $25,000 seismic assessment grant. Last year, the school was awarded assessment grants for facilities and long-range planning, totaling $45,000, said Superintendent/Princi- pal Kathryn Hedrick. “We used that money to develop plans for repairs and upgrades and led the board to go to the voters ... for a bond proposal,” she said. She said, with the seis- mic assessment grant, they will “have a structural engi- neer study the gym, the ele- mentary, and the main high school building through the seismic lens.” She said the school board will choose the engineering firm for that assessment at their meeting in May. fied about concerns they had with the bill. Verizon noted that the increase to $1.50 per phone bill far exceeds the inflation rate. Based on the consumer price index, over- all costs increased by 65 per- cent from 1995 to 2018, but forecast revenues from HB 2449 would be 197 percent higher. The increase in 911 dispatch costs, however, results from more than inflation, according to Find- ley. Much of the increased costs result from changes in technology, including implementation of a state- wide digital network, text to 911 service, new call-tak- ing equipment, mapping hardware and software, data management for geo- graphical information sys- tems, additional work sta- tions needed for increased call volumes, higher ven- dor costs for phone system maintenance and increased 911 call delivery infrastruc- ture due to increased state- wide call volume. The next step for the bill is up to Revenue Committee Chairwoman Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene. She could schedule another work session, where amendments could be adopted and the bill would be voted out of committee for a House floor vote, or the bill could die in committee.