HEALTH OFFICIALS GIVE UPDATES ON COVID-19 » PAGE A3
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
HermistonHerald.com
$1.50
INSIDE
NEW HOMES
Umatilla County housing:
Still a seller’s market
The Hermiston city council
approved annexation of a
planned new 100-lot subdi-
vision off East Punkin Center
on Monday.
Page » A3
CAP AND TRADE
Governor Kate Brown is
using an executive order to
reduce carbon emissions af-
ter a walkout by Republicans
ended the legislative session
over the issue.
Page » A7
MISSING
A Umatilla High School
teacher has been missing
since Feb. 27.
Page » A7
BY THE WAY
Mayor
running
unopposed
staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Appraiser Doug Barak takes photos of a bathroom while doing an appraisal on a newly constructed house on East Newport Avenue in
Hermiston on Friday morning. Below, he uses a laser measuring device to find the height of the ceiling.
Tuesday was the last
day for candidates to file
for races on the May 2020
ballot, and as of Tuesday
afternoon, the only candi-
date for Hermiston mayor
was current Mayor David
Drotzmann.
Hermiston’s
four
at-large city councilors
are not up for re-election
until November, and can-
didates can start filing for
those positions in June.
Judge Thomas Creas-
ing also filed for re-elec-
tion as Hermiston’s
municipal judge, with no
opponents.
For more informa-
tion about what Herm-
iston residents can see
on the May ballot, see
next week’s Hermiston
Herald.
• • •
The public is invited to
give recommendations on
the City of Hermiston’s
parks master plan during
an open house on March
19 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the
Hermiston Community
Center, 415 S. Highway
395.
The city is updat-
ing its Parks, Recreation,
and Open Space Master
See BTW, Page A2
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Umatilla County residents
are hungry for housing.
A recent analysis of hous-
ing trends in west Umatilla
County and north Morrow
County by appraiser Doug
Barak shows that home values
in those areas have gone up
each year for the past 10 years,
but Hermiston-based real
estate agents say that hasn’t
stopped people from snapping
up homes, sometimes making
offers within hours of a “for
sale” sign going up.
“The right housing flies,”
said Tami Rebman, president
of the Columbia Basin Board
of Realtors.
In 2019, according to
Barak, housing in the west
Umatilla/north
Morrow
county market had an aver-
age price of $228,523, up 9%
from the year before and up
$94,454 from 2010.
Pendleton homes sold for
an average of $212,384 in
2019.
The real estate agents
spoke from their experience
based out of Hermiston, but
said similar trends are hap-
pening in Pendleton and other
parts of Eastern Oregon.
Rebman said even during
the 2008 recession, Uma-
tilla County saw only small
decreases and stagnation in
housing prices, unlike some
areas of the country where
home values plummeted and
left millions of Americans
owing more on their mortgage
than their home was worth.
Right now, in the Herm-
iston area, there isn’t much
available under $250,000,
said Tracy Hunter, secretary
for the Columbia Basin Board
of Realtors. That means peo-
ple looking for homes in that
range need to be ready to
compete.
“I’ve got one coming next
week under $200,000 and I
can guarantee there will be
multiple offers,” Hunter said.
“Buyers have to go in with
their strongest offer. There’s
not room to come in and say, ‘I
will give you $10,000 less.’”
Being preapproved by
a lender, preferably a local
lender, helps buyers be com-
petitive,
said
Stephanie
Hughes, who also serves on
the board.
On the other hand, Hughes,
Rebman and Hunter all said
that sellers can’t get too cocky
and try to sell their home well
over market value. The inter-
net makes it easy for potential
buyers to frequently browse
online listings and get a good
feel for what’s out there, and
some will even access tax
records online to see what
the current owner paid for the
property.
“Buyers are more edu-
cated than they’ve ever been,”
Rebman said. “They’re so
informed.”
Barak provided a chart of
“sold to list” ratios each year
since 1997, showing what per-
centage of the list price for
which a home actually sold. In
See Housing, Page A10
Water revenues on track in first year of rate increase
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
8
08805 93294
2
A restructure of Hermis-
ton’s water and sewer rates
that angered residents last
year finished its first full
year on March 1, and reve-
nues have been in line with
projections.
“We should hit right at
about what we budgeted for
the fiscal year,” Assistant
City Manager Mark Mor-
gan said.
The city’s fiscal year runs
from July 1 to June 30, while
the rate increase took place
in March. But running the
numbers for the current fis-
cal year shows that the city
budgeted $9,996,658 for
water and sewer revenue in
the 2019-20 fiscal year and
earned $6,512,106 of that by
Feb. 28, putting it on track
to meet budget by the end of
June.
During the 2018-19 fis-
cal year, the city budgeted
$6,856,938 in revenues
and received $6,862,294.
Almost all of the city’s rev-
enue for water and sewer —
minus $186,661 in connec-
tion fees, interest and other
miscellaneous income —
came from customers’ water
and sewer bills.
The additional $3.1 mil-
lion earned in 2019-20 will
pay for water and sewer
projects on the city’s capital
improvement plan, ranging
from replacing century-old
water pipes to upgrading lift
stations and pumps.
Morgan said since the
city had built its new waste-
water treatment plant in
2014, too much of the city’s
water and sewer revenue had
been going toward debt ser-
vice to afford needed capital
projects. What “sealed the
deal,” he said, was when the
city ended up having to take
out a loan to pay the $1.2
million cost of dredging
the sewage out of its waste-
water lagoons, something
that needs to be done about
every 15 years to keep them
from overflowing.
See Water rates, Page A10
staff photo by Ben Lonergan
The city of Hermiston’s wastewater treatment plant,
constructed in 2014, was one of several capital projects that
resulted in the need to raise water rates.