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
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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. The city
and county estimate that it
could accommodate nearly
1,000 new houses in the
Hermiston area over the
next decade, in addition to
a proposed new elementary
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