NEWS
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2020
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
City addresses alternatives for new city hall
What are the alternatives?
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
A proposed $9 million
price tag on building a new
city hall has sparked a lot
of questions in Hermiston,
and the city is looking to
provide answers.
After few residents
attended the city council
meeting on Feb. 10 where
an overview of the proposal
was presented to coun-
cilors, city staff made the
same presentation again
on Tuesday, at 12:30 p.m.
at the Harkenrider Senior
Activity Center and 6 p.m.
in the Lanham Room of the
Hermiston Public Library.
After the East Orego-
nian and Hermiston Herald
broke the news of the price
on Tuesday, many resi-
dents questioned on Face-
book why the city couldn’t
just repair its current build-
ing, which was damaged in
a fi re, or renovate another
building it already owns.
“Are there no options
other than to destroy a per-
fectly usable (by *some-
body*, even if not the city)
building?” Judy Gorm-
ley wrote. “Can we really
afford to throw away
that building and spend
$$$$$$$ on a huge new
one?”
Other residents called
it an “outrageous price,”
said they would rather see
$9 million go toward help-
ing the homeless, or wor-
ried that their taxes would
be raised. Several asked
why the city wouldn’t sell
the current building, use
the money to renovate the
Hermiston
Community
Center and move in there.
During Monday’s coun-
cil meeting, city manager
Byron Smith said the city
had hired Architects West
in 2017 to look at the city’s
options for building a new
city hall. The fi rm came up
with fi ve different propos-
als, which Smith said were
all “within 10% of each
other” in terms of estimated
price.
Those options were:
• Expand and modern-
ize the current city hall
• Demolish the current
building and build a new
one on site
• Turn the current
Hermiston Public Library
into a new city hall
• Turn the Hermiston
Community Center into a
new city hall
• Build a new city hall
on currently undevel-
oped land
“The one that scored the
best was to rebuild on the
existing site,” Smith said.
If the city chose not to
pursue a new city hall at
this time, it could also use
the approximately $175,000
insurance payout to repair
the smoke and fi re damage
to the current building.
How do they stack up?
On Wednesday the city
released a document going
into detail about the pros
and cons of each option that
the city considered.
Adding on to the current
city hall was ruled out due
to the limited space on site.
There would not be much
room to build out, and the
building was built before
the Americans with Dis-
abilities Act of 1990. If the
ONLINE
The city’s 6 p.m. public
meeting on Tuesday
night took place after the
Hermiston Herald’s print
deadline. For a report on
the meeting, see www.
hermistonherald.com or
see next week’s Herald.”
Floor plan contributed by city of Hermiston
city were to expand or do
extensive remodeling, the
building would have to be
brought up to ADA stan-
dards, and many of the
required
improvements,
such as adding an elevator,
would take up signifi cant
space.
Three other options —
building on a new site or
remodeling the library or
community center — could
give the city extra money
to work with by selling the
current city hall.
However, particularly
with the current damage
to the building, city staff
expressed concerns about
being able to sell it.
“Marketability and rede-
velopment of the current
City Hall are highly ques-
tionable, potentially creat-
ing a blighted property at
the heart of downtown,”
staff wrote.
The memo also expressed
reservations about remod-
eling the Hermiston Com-
munity Center, noting that
the building was already 60
years old and had originally
been intended as a grocery
store. According to the esti-
mates by Architects West,
it would need “extensive
work” that would come
within 10% of the cost of
the proposed new building.
The memo stated that the
community center serves
“a number of needs in the
community” and the city
would need to put money
into upgrading other facili-
ties it owns to make up for
losing the space.
Not mentioned in the
memo was the fact that a
private buyer, yet unnamed
by the city, has expressed
interest in purchasing the
community center for a dif-
ferent use. That question
could also come before the
city council at some point
(the city would not be able
to sell the building without
a public vote).
Remodeling the library
would require similar ADA
updates as expanding city
hall, and would require the
city to fi nd a new location
for its library. And build-
ing on a vacant lot would
require the money to pur-
chase that lot.
What is the recommended
plan?
In the plan recommended
by Architects West, the city
would spend a total of $9
million — about $700,000
of which would go toward
remodeling the basement
of the Hermiston Public
Library into a makeshift
city hall during the con-
struction period. The idea
would be to perform the
remodel in such a way to
make the basement more
usable to the library in the
future.
The rest of the money
would go to a two-story
building plus basement —
with each of the three levels
about 9,200 square feet —
on the current city hall site
at 180 N.E. Gladys Ave.
The building would include
room to grow, would move
all municipal court func-
tions out of the public
safety building and would
move the building depart-
ment out of the old Carne-
gie Library.
Staff have proposed pay-
ing for the building with a
30-year loan at less than
3% interest, which would
require the city to come up
with about $439,000 per
year for payments. Smith
said that the city could use
Enterprise Zone payments
in lieu of taxes from com-
panies such as Amazon to
cover the cost.
Hermiston Police Department has busy year
The department received
more calls, and made
more stops in 2019
By JESSICA POLLARD
STAFF WRITER
New statistics detail-
ing annual crime and patrol
numbers in 2019 show
that from a policing stand-
point, things are looking up
for the Hermiston Police
Department.
In 2018, traffi c stops in
Hermiston dipped more
than 1,000 below the
10-year average as offi -
cers were reshuffl ed in the
wake of staff illnesses and
absences.
“2018 was a horrible year
for trying to stay ahead,” said
Police Chief Jason Edmis-
ton said. “We expected a
rebound in 2019.”
That’s exactly what the
department got.
In 2019, traffi c stops
saw a 36% upswing from
2018. Total issued citations
increased by 29% to 6,593.
Calls
for
service
increased by 3%, which
Edmiston acknowledges is
a small jump, but it means
a lot, after the consolidation
of the Hermiston Dispatch
Center with Umatilla Coun-
ty’s Regional 911 Dispatch
Center in 2014 may have
made it harder to track calls.
“As the population con-
tinues to trend up, the calls
for service are trending up.
Everything is encouraging,”
he said.
He added that an increase
in calls for service demon-
strates a level of trust
between civilians and law
enforcement.
But it would seem more
of those calls may have
been about violent crimes in
2019.
The city’s 10-year annual
average for violent crimes
is 35 per year. Since 2017,
Hermiston has averaged
more than 40 violent crimes
a year and 2019 was no dif-
ferent, logging 45. The city
also saw a jump in reported
aggravated assaults — 34 in
total in 2019 compared with
the 10-year average of 22
cases per year.
For Edmiston, that jump
is part of something bigger.
“(The increase) is from
a trifecta of technology, the
public acting more violently,
and legislative changes.”
Edmiston attributed a
possible rise in aggressive
behavior to continual drug
decriminalization in the
state.
In addition to crime and
patrol statistics, the Herm-
iston Police Department
tracks records requests. And
all through 2019, the depart-
ment saw a 39% increase in
information requests, from
2,730 to 3,801.
“What we’re hearing,
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because we’re so respon-
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Edmiston added that
recently the records depart-
ment adopted new software
to simplify the tracking of
information requests.
“That increase is pretty
signifi cant,”
he
said.
“Because of that, we’re add-
ing another position.”
Later this year, the police
department intends to cre-
ate another administrative
offi ce position to help fi l-
ter requests more quickly
and keep the police station
lobby open as frequently as
possible.
“At the end of the day,
we try to be transparent,”
Edmiston said. “We need to
get our hands around this.”
And in terms of state-
level data, the agency is
waiting.
Edmiston said that likely
this summer, state-mandated
data tracking traffi c and
pedestrian stops for smaller
and medium-sized police
agencies is anticipated to
debut.
It’s the same type of data
that in 2019 showed Port-
land police were twice as
likely to perform searches
on black people than white
people.
But Edmiston isn’t too
worried about the pros-
pect of such disproportion-
ate numbers in growing
Hermiston.
“I think we’re going to be
somewhere in the middle. I
don’t think we’ll see huge
spikes,” he said.
As for the rest of 2020,
Edmiston said a fi ve-year
contract for body cameras
will be renewed. Come sum-
mertime, the agency will
hire its third school resource
offi cer.
“I’m kind of just hop-
ing for a status quo kind of
year,” he said.
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Mon: 8-6
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Sat: 8-12
Emergency Service
541.567.1138
80489 Hwy 395 N
Hermiston
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