FIVE- Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Boardman council hears concerns about rent prices
PUBLIC NOTICE
-Continued from PAGE ONE out that the newest rental demand,” replied Fuss. first came. I think there’s to meet our demand,” said
to Port View’s website,
rental prices range from
$1,235 for a 522-square-
foot ag studio to $2,275
for a 1,406-square-foot,
three-bedroom apartment.
Fuss said his research
showed this compared to
prices in Portland.
“Why are we paying
Portland prices when we’re
not in Portland?” he asked.
Fuss added that those
prices were just for the
“physical box” and did not
include utilities. According
to his math, he said, rent for
a one-bedroom apartment
at Port View took up 51
percent of individual me-
dian income in Boardman
in 2022, or 26 percent of
median household income.
Those percents were higher
for two-bedroom rentals.
Also, rental costs in Board-
man have gone up over the
past few years. He said his
own rent had increased by
15 percent in 2021 and 21
percent in 2022.
“If my rent goes up
again, I will probably have
to move home to Texas,” he
said, adding that the com-
munity would then lose a
skilled music teacher whom
the students like.
He also added that
his concern was for high
schoolers who were looking
to move out of their parents’
homes but couldn’t find
affordable housing in their
hometown. He said the city
would likely lose those
graduates.
“This is not just about
my future; this is about our
students’ futures,” he said.
Fuss also pointed
property currently under
construction, Tidewater,
was being built by Affinity
Property Management, the
firm that owns Port View
Apartments. This, he said,
would give Affinity a su-
per-monopoly for mid- to
high-rent apartments.
“This is not just about
me. This is about our city,
and the future of our city,”
Fuss said. “Many of you
ran to grow this city, but
you guys have stunted
that growth because of
the super-monopoly that
this property management
company is going to have
once these new apartments
are built.”
To combat the rising
prices, Fuss asked for an
affordable housing defi-
nition in the city code, a
resident rent increase cap,
and possibly a rent freeze
within Boardman until there
is either more availability
or more diversity in the
market.
“If a local body starts
telling businesses what they
can and can’t do, what they
can charge and can’t charge,
what are the ramifications
on the other side of that?”
replied Boardman Mayor
Paul Keefer. “That’s the
part that I struggle with. As
far as government control, it
seems like government gets
involved in everything, and
it never stops.”
“Do we really want
to start going that route?”
asked Keefer.
“Monopolies tend
to be bad, because that
means there’s one entity
controlling the supply and
“It’s not about government
control, but more about
diversifying the market.”
Boardman Council-
or Isaac Williams said he
agreed with Keefer on one
hand.
“The other side is,
we’re also here to defend
our citizens,” said Wil-
liams. “It is something we
all hear about, the housing
market, and now the rental
market as well. Is there
a plan that we could put
in place to look into this
more?”
“I don’t like the price
of gas,” responded Keefer.
“Am I going to interject in
the price of gas? I don’t like
some things that are around
here, but how far do we go?
The state is trying to meddle
into it, and we see what the
state is coming up with.
That just shows how hard
it is to really control.”
“This is what people
outside of Boardman, look-
ing to move into Boardman,
are seeing,” replied Fuss.
“That it’s really ex-
pensive to live here,” said
Keefer.
“Yes, and even though
we’re not that big of a
town,” Fuss said.
Boardman Councilor
Karen Pettigrew said there
was a time the city was con-
cerned because there were
only low-income rental op-
tions in Boardman, so they
had worked to get more
housing options in the city.
“I think you have to
look at the whole communi-
ty,” said Pettigrew. “There
are options, maybe more
than you had when you
a reason why we, as a city,
allow different housing
segments for whatever type
of population would like to
move here.”
Boardman Chamber
of Commerce Executive
Director Torrie Griggs,
who was present via Zoom,
added that the city is facing
a supply-and-demand mo-
ment that is driving rental
costs up.
“We are working on
trying to provide diversi-
ty in our types of homes,
which would level out the
high home value that we’re
having. We don’t have a
whole lot of lower, afford-
able housing,” said Griggs.
“We have subsidized hous-
ing and we have middle
and upper level housing.
We don’t have affordable
housing right now.”
Shea added that the
state is coming out with
plans on workforce housing
levels so they can lower
those housing costs.
“We are just kind of
behind the eight ball where
the City of Boardman and
the Port of Morrow grew
our employment pool, our
employment opportunities,
so high, but we didn’t ever
keep up with our housing
at the same time.” She said
they are trying to mitigate
that by bringing in different
types of city developments
that are offering different
types of housing.
“I think once we get
caught up, you’ll see a dif-
ference in these rental pric-
es, because people will ei-
ther be able to move out or
we have enough availability
Griggs. “I think there’s a
lot of moving parts to this.”
Boardman City Coun-
cilor Cristina Cuevas said
that, since the council does
have a say in whether to al-
low certain development to
come into the city, she felt
that gave the city a certain
amount of responsibility.
“It might be worth our
while just to get more infor-
mation,” she said.
Boardman City Coun-
cilor Heather Baumgartner
added that codifying the
rent level and increases
could help stabilize rent
and that, since it would be
part of the city code, build-
ers would know about it
going in.
“Builders would know
going into it that we are
looking out for our com-
munity,” Baumgartner said,
adding that the state had
done something similar
with property tax increases.
Boardman City Man-
ager Pro Tem Rick Stokoe
said it was important to
realize the state was trying
to address housing through
Senate Bill 608. SB 608,
which passed in 2019, al-
lows landlords to raise the
rent seven percent plus
inflation per year. That rate
for 2023 is 14.6 percent.
“There are methods in
place for people who feel
they are being taken advan-
tage of to file complaint and
remedy that issue. Rather
than the City of Boardman
create a whole new statue, I
think we should defer to the
state statute,” said Stokoe.
continued from page 4
attorneys for the personal
representitive.Dated and
first published onMarch
8, 2023.s/ Karen J. Mon-
tegna Personal Repre-
sentative do
Cameron
Bendixsen, Attorney for
Personal Representative
Bendixsen Law, P.C.
245 E. Main St. Suite E
Hermiston, OR
97838
Tele: 541-567-5564 Pub-
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Morrow County seeks $1.3 million in funding for water nitrate solutions
-Continued from PAGE THREE
of design work.”
“When there’s so many
options and so many vari-
ables on how to solve this
issue, it becomes an in-
credibly complicated doc-
ument,” he added, “so we
really wanted to put a lot of
time and energy into giving
the engineering team a lot
of runway to just nail down
those alternatives.”
Iglorio also pointed
out that, within the scope
and budget of the proposal,
they listed a key task of
communications with the
well owners and the public
water systems.
“Which I think is going
to be an important part of
the whole study and coming
up with solutions,” said
Iglorio. “The technical part
of the work is probably in
some ways the easier part.
Getting that agreement and
folks on the same page with
those solutions will be a key
part of the effort.”
“And to not do this af-
ter doing the work for this
year, doesn’t even really
make sense, right?” asked
Morrow County Commis-
sioner Roy Drago. “If we’re
going to do this work for
this year, we really need to
piggyback and go into next
year and the year after.”
“I think that’s right,
and I think that’s also the
public’s expectation,” re-
plied Mabbott, though she
added that some people
had asked why the county
needs to study anything fur-
ther. “We’re talking about
systems the county doesn’t
own, nobody owns.
“No entity applies for
a grant to construct a ma-
jor infrastructure system
without going through a
lot of collaboration of de-
sign and then, finally, the
engineering piece. This
wouldn’t even cover the
final design,” she added.
“We need to see if the city
partners, some of those
private landowners want
to look at building a whole
new community water sys-
tem. It takes time.”
“When the nitrate issue
came to a head,” said Mor-
row County Commissioner
Chair David Sykes, “I was
a little frustrated because I
pictured a single solution.
I’ve come to appreciate
much more now that there’s
multiple solutions, multiple
results.”
“I think you guys are
going in the right direc-
tion,” he added.
“There’s going to be
clusters of high-impact
areas and clusters further
away,” agreed Drago. “Ev-
eryone’s unique. And I
think that’s why going sec-
ond set with just Morrow
County is going to make it
easier for us to attack the
problem.”
Mabbott also added
that the issue involves both
groundwater and public
health issues, and the proj-
ect is a hybrid of both, so
Morrow County Health
Dept. Director Robin Can-
aday is also involved in the
work. While the topic at
the March 1 meeting was
congressional spending,
she said they’ve also been
coordinating with the Ore-
gon Health Authority in the
sense that they are work-
ing to solve the problem,
and more funding would
be coming through that
agency.
“So piecing out who’s
doing what has been a chal-
lenge,” said Mabbott. “But
I hope we’re going the right
direction.”
“The county has a
health department that
looks after the health of
our citizens,” responded
Sykes. “We don’t have a
department of fixing the
LUBGWMA (Lower Uma-
tilla Basin Groundwater
Management Area). I think
they are connected, but we
have to watch how far the
county goes.”
He added that the LUB-
GWMA is a two-county
entity, and the state needs
to be involved.
“And they need to be
involved in providing clean
water to our citizens, which
is our health department’s
task,” said Sykes. “But I
think they need to be more
heavily involved in doing
more to fix the nitrate in
LUBGWMA. That’s a little
beyond the county’s regular
things that we do.”
Also present at the
meeting were several mem-
bers of Oregon Rural Ac-
tion, a community-based
organization that has been
vocal on the issue of nitrates
in drinking water.
Boardman resident
Ethan Akers asked, “How
many wells are you pro-
posing to test with the $1.7
and what information are
you going to collect on it?”
Mabbott replied that
those funds were part of the
grant in conjunction with
Umatilla County, and they
were currently in process
of writing a scope of work
for that.
Iglorio said there was
allocation from the $1.7 to
do sampling and testing of
domestic wells in Morrow
County, but part of the
process involved working
with OHA, Dept. of Envi-
ronmental Quality (DEQ)
and other entities to create
a work plan.
“There’s a lot of uncer-
tainty in exactly how that’s
going to play out,” he said,
“There’s a lot of sampling
that had been completed
in the past and ongoing
sampling that’s been going
on through the OHA state
process, but we wanted to
allocate some portion of
this funding to support the
characterization of impact
to the domestic wells.”
He added that they were
assuming it would cost be-
tween $500 and $1,000
per well for sampling. The
range in cost was given to
allow for uncertainty on ex-
actly what parameters they
would be testing for, who
is going to be collecting
the samples and how the
process will work. He said
nitrates would obviously be
involved in the parameters,
but there might be other
water quality issues they
looked at, as well. Based
on that cost, though, he said
they were looking at about
1,000 sampling locations
between the two counties.
Morrow County Com-
missioner Jeff Wenholz also
pointed out that the counties
did not yet have the $1.7
million.
Kaleb Lay asked if they
could learn more about
what kinds of questions the
county would be trying to
answer in testing the wells,
and whether there would
be retesting or testing new
ones. Lay is a communi-
ty organizer with Oregon
Rural Action and lives in
Union County.
“We’re just looking for
some information on what
we can expect as communi-
ty members,” said Lay.
B efo re an s weri n g ,
Sykes asked Lay which
community he was refer-
ring to, whether it was West
Glen or a larger area. Lay
answered that he represent-
ed rural well owners in the
Lower Umatilla Basin.
“Is that right?” replied
Sykes. “You represent all
the well owners in the Low-
er Umatilla Basin?”
“As far as the commu-
nity members that we have
engaged on this issue, I
think we draw from a really
wide base,” said Lay. “And
we are advocating on behalf
of and with community
members throughout the
Lower Umatilla. I don’t
think we’re restricted to one
neighborhood.”
“This is an issue that
touches a lot of people, and
I think you guys can relate,
we’re just trying to help as
many folks as we can here.”
“I understand that. We
all are,” replied Sykes.
“Our task is to help the
citizens of Morrow County
receive clean drinking wa-
ter,” Sykes said, adding that
he just wanted clarification
because Lay referred to
“we.”
Mabbot said, in re-
sponse to his question, that
it was the 2023 funding she
had come before the board
to request approval for,
and referred the question
to Iglorio.
Iglorio said the cur-
rent proposal would build
on the 2022 project. The
anticipated outcome for
that project would be to
identify the well clusters
or areas that could viably
be served by connecting to
or extending current public
water systems. The 2023
funding would be used for
follow-up and confirma-
tion, as well as possibly
installing test wells as they
move into final planning
and initial design concepts.
“The testing that’s
proposed for this funding
request is focused around
those specific issues,” said
Iglorio.
Lay also asked what
alternatives were being
considered for people who
aren’t eligible for city hook-
ups. “I know we’re early
in the process of planning
here, but as far as envision-
ing for the future, where are
we in accounting for those
folks?”
“All the options that
are feasible will be on the
table,” replied Mabbott.
“I think we’re so early
in the process that that
would be an impossible
question to answer,” said
Sykes, “because you don’t
really know what you don’t
know.
“That’s why Morrow
County has committed
funds for a water engi-
neer. The Merkley-Wyden
money, it’s aimed to find
out, like we just specified,
there’s different solutions in
different areas,” Sykes went
on. “As this process moves
forward, that question you
just asked will be answered,
but that’s the purpose of
everything we’re doing
right now, because there’s
no use trying to do things
if they don’t work.
“We want to know what
we’re doing, where to go for
the infrastructure, whatever
kinds of grants or money is
available,” Sykes finished.
“Tamra and her people that
she’s working with can’t
answer these things until
they have a clear picture
with very good information
of where to move next.”
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