HEPPNER
G T
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azette
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VOL. 139
NO. 27 8 Pages
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon
Deal reached to form new
enterprise zone
‘Good outcome…important tool for the county,’
says Commission Chair Lindsay
By David Sykes
After months of negoti-
ations, the Port of Morrow
and Morrow County Com-
mission has arrived at an
agreement to seek renewal
of the Columbia River En-
terprise Zone, paving the
way to continue what has
been a highly successful
business development tool.
After intense negotiations
over the past 10 weeks,
the two ironed out their
differences and will now
co-sponsor the new zone to
be called CREZ 3. It will be
an extension of the current
CREZ 2.
There are some major
changes in structure and de-
cision making for the new
zone, however. There will
now only be two sponsors
of the zone, the port and
the county. Boardman will
no longer be a permanent
member. Now the port and
county will each appoint
three members to serve on
the CREZ board.
All cities in the coun-
ty, however, could have
the opportunity to join the
board for decision mak-
ing. If a new business or
project considers locating
near them, they would then
become part of the decision
making CREZ board. If a
city is allowed to join, the
board will be determined
if the new business ven-
ture or project falls within
designated influence zones
around each city in the
county. Those zones are laid
out a map which is part of
the agreement. If a city does
join the CREZ board, then
the members will be the
port, county and city, with
two voting members each.
As with the current
zone, new businesses lo-
cating in the enterprise
zone receive property tax
breaks as incentive to locate
here, and that money goes
directly to the CREZ. How
the money is spent will also
be decided by the assem-
bled six-member board. If
a development comes into
an area not covered by a
city influence zone, it will
be then just be the port and
county making all board
decisions. This is a major
change over the current
process where the city of
Boardman is a permanent
member involved with zone
decisions throughout the
county. The area of the actu-
al enterprise zone does not
change however, consisting
of 13 square miles, mainly
at Port of Morrow near
Boardman where so far, all
new development and mon-
ey has been coming from.
The county and port
had been hung up on the
size and location of the
influence zone maps deter-
mining what areas will be
represented by which cities,
however they worked out
their differences to arrive
at the new CREZ 3 deal.
Each of the five cities in the
county will have an influ-
ence zone of approximately
32,000 acres (see map).
Coming to the agree-
ment was not easy and took
quite a bit of time, requir-
ing a unique bill passed
at the State of Oregon’s
recent legislature special
session. The bill was re-
quired because state-wide
the deadline for submitting
enterprise zone applications
to the Oregon Business
Development Department
(OBDD) for renewal was
June 30, however with the
extended negotiations in
Morrow County it was
necessary to have the leg-
islature grant a special six-
month extension for the
extra time.
At a special Monday
session, the county com-
missioners approved the
new zone agreement by a
three to zero unanimous
vote. The Port of Morrow
had earlier approved the
same resolution last week,
sealing the agreement be-
tween the two. Following
the meeting, Commission
Chair Melissa Lindsay,
who has been handling
the majority of the zone
Commission Chair Melissa
Lindsay
renewal negotiations with
the Port told the Heppner
Gazette-Times, “I am very
pleased that the EZ 3 appli-
cation for Morrow County
is on its way down the path
toward the state. This is an
important tool, along with
others, to have in the tool-
box for Morrow County to
attract business. The recent
hard work and diligent
effort has gotten us to a
partnership with the Port
of Morrow. We still need to
work through conversations
with the impacted taxing
districts and I look forward
to a collaborative discus-
sion with them. It isn’t easy
to have the difficult conver-
sations in the transparent
public eye but it is the right
thing to do and by doing so
we learned, got to better
Amazon plans smaller data
centers
‘Shoehorn’ in around the bigger ones
By David Sykes
In a departure from
their current model of
building big 200,000 square
foot data centers around the
Boardman area, Amazon
recently said they are plan-
ning to build some smaller
10 to 15 thousand square
foot centers on vacant land
in between the big build-
ings.
The large cement data
buildings have become a
common sight around the
Boardman area with new
centers under construc-
tion most of the time. The
structures house the com-
puter equipment powering
Amazon’s web services
arm of its business, a di-
vision which is growing
and accounted for about
13.5 percent of Amazon’s
total reported first quarter
revenue of $75.5 billion
this year. The web services
or cloud computing divi-
sion showed a 33 percent
increase this first quarter.
Amazon is also the cloud
computing market leader,
ahead of both Microsoft and
Google.
Construction of the
new data farms has brought
change to Morrow County.
The company has cut deals
with the Columbia River
Enterprise Zone (CREZ)
that is currently, and will
for many years, be pouring
millions in payments in
lieu of taxes into the CREZ
coffers, which in turn is
distributed throughout the
county. The data centers
also add good paying high
tech jobs mixing in with
the food processing jobs
already available in the
Aerial shot of a typical Amazon data center built on Hwy 84
near Boardman.
Boardman area.
Typically, the new data
centers are 200,000 square
feet, from which the CREZ
receives $1 million per year
on each one. Recently Am-
azon representatives came
to the CREZ and asked to
amend all four of their pre-
vious long-term tax break
agreements dating back to
2017, which would allow
the smaller buildings to be
built in between the larger
already existing buildings.
Using the same tax
on square footage formula
used on the larger buildings,
the CREZ agreed to charge
Amazon $5 per square foot
for any new data centers it
constructs under 200,000
square feet. During dis-
cussion with Amazon offi-
cials, CREZ board member
and county commissioner
Don Russell declared he
had a possible conflict of
interest and recused him-
self from any discussions
and voting on the Ama-
zon agreements. CREZ
alternate board member Jim
Doherty voted in Russell’s
place. Later at a commis-
sioner meeting ratifying the
Amazon agreements Rus-
sell recused himself again
from discussion and voting.
Likewise, at a later Port of
Morrow meeting, both Jerry
Healy and Marvin Padberg
recused themselves from
participating in the Amazon
deliberations and voting.
All three are owners of a
Boardman based internet
service provider business
called Windwave Com-
munications, which sells
internet services through
business contracts with
Amazon.
Amazon officials said
the purpose of the smaller
buildings was not a method
to pay less in lieu of taxes
to the CREZ, it was just a
new business opportunity
they have found for a cer-
tain type of customer that
wants the smaller buildings.
They gave no indication
of how many of the new
smaller buildings were be-
ing planned.
processes and transparency
and came to a good middle
ground decision. I think we
came to a good outcome for
the county as a whole and
I look forward to working
with our partners at the Port
to keep Morrow County
growing with strong con-
versations and good plan-
ning in mind. It is a relief
to be near the finish line on
this,” she said.
Other changes in the
new zone, if approved by
the state, would allow tax
deferred zone areas to be set
up around the entire county,
waiving the current 25-mile
distance between zone ar-
eas. This could open areas
all across the county for tax
abatement opportunities
for new businesses and
development. Specifically
mentioned in the zone res-
olution is that hotel, motels
and destination resorts be
able to receive property tax
exemptions in the zone.
A change in how the
money may be spent was
also made, with the county
and port agreeing to add
infrastructure to the ap-
proved list of uses for the
money. The five uses of
zone funds will now be:
infrastructure, education,
public safety, housing and
community enhancement.
Final decisions on how
the funds will be used and
disbursed will eventually be
decided by an intergovern-
mental agreement between
the port, county and cities,
however the resolution does
call for Portland State Uni-
versity population numbers
as a means for disbursement
of specific funds to taxing
districts.
The current enterprise
zone CREZ 2 has done
very well generating mon-
ey over its 10-year life
and has been successful in
attracting businesses, gen-
erating over $20 million in
revenue in lieu of taxes. In
the coming 15 years CREZ
2 is expected, with current
contracts in place, to take
in over $165 million more,
much of this coming from
the Amazon data centers
being constructed there.
The income to be generated Each of Morrow County’s five cities will have an “influence zone” of approximately 32,000
from a CREZ 3 is at this acres, allowing them to join the enterprise zone board if development happens there.
time unknown, however,
there is still prime industrial
land to be developed at the
port which could be includ-
ed and generate money in
the new zone.
The board also made
an agreement with current
zone administrator Greg
MORROW COUNTY GRAIN GROWERS
Sweek to move forward
350 MAIN STREET LEXINGTON OR 97839
CONTACT JUSTIN BAILEY 541-256-0229, 541-989-8221 EXT.
with the application for
204
the new zone. Sweek is
very knowledgeable about
enterprise zone applications
and operations.
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