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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 27, 2019)
NEWS Wednesday, March 27, 2019 herMIsTOnheraLd.cOM • A3 New transportation funding to increase reach of public transit By JADE MCDOWELL NEWS EDITOR H ermiston will be among the East- ern Oregon cities to reap the benefits of the state’s payroll tax for pub- lic transit. Umatilla County, Mor- row County and the Con- federated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reserva- tion were among the first 18 transit providers whose applications were approved to receive Statewide Trans- portation Improvement Fund money. Union, Wal- lowa, Baker, Grant and Har- ney counties were also on the list. The funds come from a one-tenth of 1 percent pay- roll tax instituted as part of the legislature’s 2017 trans- portation package. The money is to be dedicated to public transit improve- ments, from adding routes to upgrading bus fleets. Bob Waldher, director of Umatilla County’s depart- ment of land use plan- ning, said Umatilla County is eligible to pull in nearly $1 million per year. As a result of its first applica- tion, the county will receive $398,000 in 2019, $692,000 in 2020, and $794,000 in 2021 to fund 11 projects recommended by the coun- ty’s STIF advisory board. The seven-person board currently has one opening. “In Umatilla County, the funding will help fund hh file photo A Umatilla Cab Co. taxi drives through Hermiston in 2016. STIF funding will pay for an expansion of the city’s taxi ticket program to include employees traveling to work. projects that improve and expand public transit for seniors and the disabled, low-income families, and the county’s growing work- force population,” Waldher said in an email. Some of the money will go toward creating a new Hermiston to Boardman route by Kayak Public Tran- sit that would connect cities in western Umatilla County with employment at the Port of Morrow. Another project listed in the application will provide half-price taxi rides within the Hermiston, Stanfield, Umatilla and Echo area for people traveling between their home and their place of employment. At Monday’s city coun- cil meeting assistant city manager Mark Morgan said Hermiston will receive about $78,000. The pro- gram will be an expan- sion of the city’s current City mulls options for industrial land By JADE MCDOWELL NEWS EDITOR be widened and improved and water and sewer lines would be extended. The total package would cost an estimated $8 million. Morgan said the proj- ect could be downsized — taking off the traffic signal would shave about $1 mil- lion off, as would canceling the Penney Avenue exten- sion, and not putting side- walks on the roads would save another $700,000. The city qualifies for up to $1.5 million in grant funding from the U.S. Eco- nomic Development Admin- istration for the project, due to the number of layoffs that happened when Hermiston Foods closed its plant there, but Morgan said the grant is “highly competitive.” He also said that the grant requires a 50 percent match, so the more funding the city applied for, the more it would be on the hook to pro- vide. He suggested the city look for partnerships with the Port of Umatilla, Uma- tilla County, the state and private entities that might benefit. Councilors expressed an interest in seeing the city submit an EDA grant appli- cation this year to cover the building of 10th Street and the stub road off of it into the Port of Umatilla property. “I’d like to see a grant application be submitted, but we need to come up with a plan for the matching dol- lars,” Lori Davis said. Manuel Gutierrez said the city needed to talk with the port and county about their interest before going forward, and city man- ager Byron Smith pointed out that port manager Kim Puzey and county commis- sioner George Murdock had both shown up to the meeting. Councilor John Kirwan said he liked the idea of improvements. “Any time we improve access to a property, it increases the marketabil- ity for someone to do some- thing with it,” he said. Increased access to indus- trial land south of Hermis- ton could be one of the city’s next big-ticket expenses. On Monday, during a city council work session, assis- tant city manager Mark Mor- gan said most of Hermis- ton’s developable industrial land lies south of the city, behind Hermiston Foods and the Walmart Distribu- tion Center. The city hopes to make that land more mar- ketable by increasing access. Much of the land in ques- tion has been known for decades as the Cook Indus- trial Site, but Morgan said the Cook family is in the process of selling a 38-acre parcel and 8-acre parcel to an agricultural operation that would plan to farm it until an industrial developer were interested. Morgan said city staff’s new working title was SHIP — the South Hermis- ton Industrial Park. The ideal project Morgan presented Monday would include extending Penney Avenue to Highway 395 and Previously Known as: adding a traffic signal to the Backyard By Design highway where it connected Same Owners & Products, Just a New Name! near Ranch & Home. South- east Campbell Drive would Enhancing the Art of Outdoor Living extend down to Penney Ave- 541-720-0772 or PATIO WOVERS·PERGOLAS nue, a “stub” street would PATIO & SUN SHADES be built into property owned wn 509-308-1354 Free Es�mates! by the Port of Umatilla and RETRAWTABLE AWNINGS VISIT OUR SHOWROOM! Southeast 10th Street would SWREEN ROOMS Dr. Kennewick 99336 go from a sagebrush-cov- 102 E Wolumbia (Call for hours of operation) SOLAR SWREENS & MORE! ered right of way to an actual www.nwshadeco.com License #188965 road. Existing roads would taxi ticket program, which allows senior and disabled residents to purchase dis- counted vouchers at city hall. The taxi company then turns the tickets back in to the city to receive reim- bursement for the remain- der of the fare. Milton-Freewater and Pendleton will also receive funding for expansion of their own transit programs. Anita Pranger, Mor- row County transportation coordinator, said Morrow County expects to see about $104,000 in 2019 and about $221,000 in 2020. She said the funding will help create a fixed-route bus system in the county for the first time. She envisions starting out with the Board- man-to-Hermiston route in partnership with Kayak Public Transit and Umatilla County, and then eventu- ally expanding to Heppner and maybe even Arlington. As part of that, the money could help pay for bus stops, signs, education campaigns, a full-time dispatcher, mobile data transmitters on buses and other upgrades. “There are things in Mor- row County we are going to grow for the first time,” she said. Prager said the new STIF funds coming into Morrow County and other parts of Eastern Oregon will help rural areas better serve their residents who can’t afford a vehicle or can’t drive for other reasons. The $50,000 awarded to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reser- vation will help with admin- istrative costs for Kayak Public Transit to tackle the Boardman-to-Hermis- ton route. Money awarded to the counties will also be funneled back to Kayak to purchase two new buses for the route. JD Tovey, tribal planning director, said it usually takes roughly 18 months for new buses to arrive after they are ordered, so the new route won’t be up and running right away. During the wait the project’s partners will have time to plan routes, stops and schedules so that they will best serve riders. According to the Ore- gon Transportation Com- mittee, the 18 applications approved last week will help support 207 million new trips on public transit during the 2019-21 biennium. Water tower groundbreaking scheduled for April By JADE MCDOWELL NEWS EDITOR The City of Hermiston and Umatilla County will break ground on a joint $4.1 million water project on April 17. The groundbreaking ceremony will take place at noon on the corner of East Punkin Center and North- east 10th Street, where the city will build a 1 million gallon water tower simi- lar to the one located on South Highway 395 (and no, the city doesn’t know what will be painted on this one yet). The project also includes about two miles of new water mains. The city has taken out a loan from the Oregon Business Development Department’s Infrastruc- ture Finance Authority to get started on construction. Umatilla County plans to contribute $2 million and the city plans to supply the rest, with both enti- ties drawing those amounts from payments in lieu of taxes by Lamb Weston. The new water tank will increase Hermiston’s water storage, keeping the taps flowing in Hermiston for more than the current 18 hours in the event of a major power outage in the area. The project will also open about 300 acres of residential land up for development. 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