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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (May 9, 2018)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2018 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3 NEWS City, county disagree over splitting $4 million Each will benefit from SIP payments, data centers SIP development sites A Strategic Investment Program agreement negotiated between Vadata and Umatilla County covers three development sites, two of which are in the city of Umatilla. 730 Vadata sites Highwa City limits N 1 mile R i v er Source: City of Umatilla y 395 Scott Johnson, a phy- sician assistant, rejoined Hermiston Family Med- icine and Urgent Health Care clinic this winter. “I jumped at the oppor- tunity to come back to work here and to come back to the area,” he said. Johnson first worked at the clinic in the early 2000s, then leaving to work in Salem and to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq as a member of the National Guard. His first job out of school was working as a provider at the old demili- tarization site at the Uma- tilla Army Depot. Johnson will be a full- time provider at the facility, which is located at 236 E. Newport Ave., Hermiston. • • • The Hermiston Farm- er’s Market won’t start until June, but when it does, it will be at a brand-new location on a new day of the week. The market, featuring local growers and crafts, has had several homes, including McKenzie Park and downtown. But starting June 7 the market will be at the currently-under-con- struction Maxwell Pavil- ion, 255 S First Place across from Bi-Mart. The market — which will be adding features like craft beer and live music — will run every Thurs- day from June 7 to Oct. 4 treet Drive 730 Southshore ad r Ro Rive continued from Page A1 Sixth S la Um atil BTW 395 Umatilla r a Rive Columbi Powerline Road tilla Jade McDowell and Alan Kenaga/ EO Media Group ma 207 U Hermiston 82 Road op E Lo W es tla nd Ro ad Umatilla County and the city of Umatilla are at odds over how payments from new Amazon data centers should be divided. The county wants to give the city about one fourth of a $4 million-per-year payment in lieu of property taxes, but City Manager Russ Pel- leberg wants half. “The city has spent mil- lions on these develop- ments,” he said. “The county has done nothing.” In August, the county signed a Strategic Invest- ment Program (SIP) agree- ment with Vadata, a data center development subsid- iary of Amazon, allowing the company to forgo paying some property taxes for 15 years on three new develop- ments in exchange for other types of payments to the county and local taxing dis- tricts. One provision of the agreement gives the county a $4 million per year “addi- tional annual improvement payment” — which Pel- leberg says the city deserves half of based on what he estimates is about $6 million the city has spent recruiting and supporting two of the developments covered in the agreements. The SIP agreement cov- ers a total of three devel- opments: one off Westland Road currently under con- struction south of Herm- iston, one building added to the campus off Beach Access Road in Umatilla and one new development between Lind Road and Old River Road that Uma- tilla annexed into the city last year. According to Pel- leberg, that means “two- thirds” of the deal is located in city limits, meaning the city is being generous by offering to take only half of the $4 million. The county doesn’t see it that way. Based on the fact that all three developments are h. Was . Ore 82 By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER 395 207 U matilla 84 River 30 STAFF PHOTO BY KATHY ANEY Jesse Soto (hammering) and Mario Sanchez of C & C Construction work on a building that is part of Vadata’s data center campus near Two Rivers Correctional Institution. “The city has spent millions on these developments. The county has done nothing.” Russ Pelleberg, Umatilla city manager not expected to be of equal size or value, the county has offered a formula based on the percentage of the three developments’ assessed value that falls within Uma- tilla’s city limits. That per- centage of the $4 million would then be split evenly between city and county. Umatilla County counsel Doug Olsen said Umatilla would likely receive about $1 million of the $4 million per year under that arrange- ment, in addition to other from 4-8 p.m. with a special kick-off event on Saturday, June 2. Look for more informa- tion about the new Maxwell Pavilion and area farm- ers’ markets in an upcom- ing edition of the Hermis- ton Herald. • • • Kathleen Gamble of the Umatilla Police Depart- ment will graduate from the Oregon Public Safety Academy during a Fri- day ceremony at 10 a.m. in Salem. Gamble and her class- mates in the Basic Police Class 377 participated in a 16-week course through the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training. Chief Jon Sassa- man of the Corvallis Police Department is the guest speaker. A reception will follow the ceremony. The Oregon DPSST pro- vides training to more than 25,000 students each year throughout Oregon and at the academy campus in Salem. For more informa- tion, visit www.oregon.gov/ dpsst. • • • For a royal time, stop by the SAGE Cen- ter this weekend to meet Oregon Dairy princess ambassadors. The SAGE Saturday event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., offers free admission and activities for children and their par- ents. Kids can make a spe- cial “My Plate” placemat, which highlights the impor- tance of including dairy, Visit us online at www.HermistonHerald.com revenue generated from dif- ferent parts of the deal with the developer (non-disclo- sure agreements prevent Pelleberg and Olsen from naming the developer but various publicly available records tie the projects to Amazon). The Strategic Investment Program allows counties to offer a 15-year property tax break to companies as an incentive to build there. Under state statute, the first $25 million in real market value of the project is taxed at the usual rate and distrib- uted to taxing districts such as cities, school districts and fire districts. A flat commu- nity service fee of $500,000 per year is also assessed, to be divided between the dis- tricts. Additional “annual improvement payments” from the company can also be negotiated as desired, which is where the $4 mil- lion comes from. “The terms of the stat- ute are fairly broad (on the fruits, vegetables, pro- tein and grains for proper nutrition. The SAGE Cen- ter is located at 101 Olson Road, Boardman. The prin- cess ambassadors will be on hand from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to share about Oregon’s dairy industry. For more information, call 541-481-7243 or visit www.visitsage.com. • • • Looking for a good way to celebrate Mother’s Day? The annual Elks Mother’s Day Service at the Herm- iston Elks Lodge features music by the Coffey family. The public is invited to the free event Sunday at 10 a.m. at 480 E. Main St. Peo- ple are encouraged to lin- ger afterwards and enjoy a champagne brunch at 11 a.m. The meal costs $8 per person. For more informa- tion, call Jim Voss at 541- 571-5116 or the lodge at 541-567-6923. • • • ——— You can submit items for our weekly By The Way column by emailing your tips to editor@hermiston- annual improvement pay- ments),” Olsen said. He said the county’s offer was according to pre- vious arrangements on SIP and enterprise zones, which offer property tax breaks to companies building in cer- tain pre-approved zones. However, Pelleberg pointed to a recent enter- prise zone deal with Lamb Weston, where the county and city of Hermiston will evenly split annual $1 mil- lion payments by Lamb Weston in lieu of property taxes, even though Lamb Weston’s new $250 million expansion is outside Herm- iston city limits. While laws governing SIP agreements and enterprise zones are dif- ferent, Pelleberg says the basic principal should be the same: a 50/50 split. He estimates the city has spent roughly $6 mil- lion accommodating Vadata, including new water and sewer infrastructure built or in the works, roads, mainte- nance, attorney fees, studies and staff time in departments such as the planning depart- ment. One recent expen- diture he pointed to was $300,000 for engineering studies for a planned exten- sion of water to the Lind Road area. A 50 percent split on the $4 million could help reimburse the city for expen- ditures like that. “$2 million a year for the next 15 years is a pretty big deal to this community,” he said. Olsen said the SIP agree- ment with the developer was negotiated using a team of county staff. Pelleberg con- tends the city should have had a seat at the table for the original negotiations. Olsen said the reason the city was not initially included is it did not annex in the Lind Road property until after the SIP agreement was submitted and that the county was not immediately aware of the annexation. 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Use the Oticon ON App with your iPhone or Android™ smartphone to control your hearing devices. Oticon Opn and Oticon ON App are compatible with iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone SE, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, 9.7-inch iPad Pro, 12.9-inch iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, iPad Air, iPad (4th generation), iPad mini 4, iPad mini 3, iPad mini 2, iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th and 6th generation). Devices must be running iOS 9.3 or later. The app also supports Apple Watch. When downloading the Oticon ON App on iPad, search for iPhone apps on the App Store. Oticon ON App is compatible with devices powered by Android™ 6.0, Marshmallow or above. Please visit www.oticon.global/connectivity for more details on compatibility, or see the description for Oticon ON App on the App Store® and Google Play. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Android™ and Google Play™ are trademarks of Google Inc. $5 Matinee Classics Every Wednesday Credit & Debit Cards accepted Cineplex gift cards available tribution of the proceeds shall be governed by a sep- arate agreement between the county and the city.” That agreement has not yet been signed, and the city recently submitted a public records request for a vari- ety of documents pertaining to the drafting of that agree- ment after Pelleberg said the county has not been forth- coming about its reasoning behind the agreement (Olsen contends the county has had multiple meetings with Pel- leberg on the subject). In this particular SIP agreement, according to a report to the Oregon Busi- ness Development Com- mission by business incen- tives coordinator Art Fish, the three new data center projects in Umatilla County could potentially reach a total value of $2.75 billion at full build-out. 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