Baker City Weekly Report

April 8, 2011

ADMINISTRATION

 As the Cities Code Enforcement efforts ramp up we will be including information in the weekly report on
different cases that we are working on.
 The City Manager, Mayor Dorrah, and County Chair Werner met with Werner Buehler from OTECC this week.
The conversation centered on the upcoming Resort Street project and the Cities desire to put Resort Street
utilities underground.
 The City Manager attended a meet and greet with the new Wallowa-Whitman Forest Supervisor this week.
Welcome to Monica Schwalbach who has moved to Baker City from Asheville North Carolina.

Potential Agenda Items for April 12, 2011:

 Capital Plans and Pavement Master Plan
 FBO Contract Extension.
 Resolution Sidewalk grant
 OTECC update

POLICE
 BCPD opened 28 new cases, making multiple arrests. One of these cases, which started out
as a noise complaint, resulted in 2 arrests for furnishing alcohol to a minor, 3 minor in
possession of alcohol citations and 1 citation for possession of less than one ounce of
marijuana.
 BCPD personnel, Baker City Hall personnel and a civilian volunteer interviewed 6 excellent
applicants for the Administrative Assistant position.
 Officer Josh Bryant was selected for promotion and on April 4th was sworn in as a Police
Sergeant.

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 Figure 1 Officer Bryant becoming
Sergeant Bryant as he is sworn in by City Recorder Becky Fitzpatrick as Chief Lohner looks on.

 This past week has also put our agency, and community, at the center of news reports from
Boise, Idaho, north to Vancouver, British Columbia and east to Toronto, Ontario in
Canada.
Baker City was the last know location of Albert and Rita Chretien, who stopped in Baker City
on March 19, 2011. At this time the search for the missing couple has extended through
Baker, Malheur, Grant and Harney Counties in Eastern and Southeastern Oregon. Over 40
Law Enforcement officers and 18 Search and Rescue volunteers, from 6 separate Oregon
agencies, have traveled over 3,000 miles of state highways and county roads during the
search. Malheur County has also flown approximately 13 hours over 2 days, traveling in
excess of 1,000 miles over Southeastern Oregon. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police continue
to have a significant presence in the investigation, with 2 investigators stationed in Baker City
and 6 others involved with the case in Canada. Oregon investigators have also contacted
multiple U.S. Federal agencies, to include the United States Forest Service and Bureau of Land
Management, requesting assistance.

Sergeant Kirk McCormick has been leading the investigative efforts and coordinating with US
and Canadian Law Enforcement.

CODE ENFORCEMENT

 12 vehicles were tagged for dead storage, these vehicles are ones that have not moved in
months, have expired tags, wrecked, inoperable, dismantled etc. sitting on our city streets.

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 During the week of April 1-April 8, Two (2) new Property Maintenance cases under the
property maintenance ordinance were opened due to citizen complaints.

 One property maintenance case opened under the new ordinance has been abated with a
court order. Below are some before and after photographs. The case history is over 20
years old. With the new Property Maintenance Ordinance this case was opened in
September of 2009 and abated approximately sixteen months later, costing approximately
$1,780 for abatement.

Figure 2 Property before nuisance abatement.

Figure 3 Property before nuisance abatement.

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Figure 4 Property from above after abatement.

Figure 5 Property before nuisance abatement.

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 Figure 6 Property shown above after abatement.

FIRE
The Baker City Fire Department Responded to a total of 34 emergency alarms for the past week. Breakdown of
emergency responses:

FIRE
General Alarms 0
Still Alarms 4
TOTAL RESPONSES 4

Fire responses are broken down as follows:

 1 Fire in a structure contained to the wall and flue. Approximately $210,000 of property exposed to risk by fire,
with damage contained to an estimated $2,000.
 1 Rescue.
 2 calls classified as other, possible electrical short.
 1 Burn complaint, unattended burning.

AMBULANCE
Rural Calls 10
City Calls 20

Transports 24
No Patient Trip 6
Out of town transfers 4

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 Airport Transfers 1
Motor Vehicle Crash 2
Doubles 6
Triples 0

TOTAL RESPONSES 30

TRAINING/MAINTENANCE:
38hours of training consisting of:
 EMS: Distracted driving class sponsored by the Cities insurance provider.
 Fire: Firefighter 1 academy.
87 hours of station and equipment maintenance including:
 Weekly medication inventory and replacement of expired medications.
 Station, apparatus and equipment maintenance.
 Annual SCBA maintenance and testing continued.
Additional services include:
 Hosted new Baker County dispatcher for ride-along.
 Station tour/fire prevention 10 children and 5 adults.

PUBLIC WORKS

Parks/Cemetery
 Work began in earnest this week on Central Park. The contractor has moved equipment into place, moved some
dirt, and continues to make progress which has been slowed by the weather.

Figure 7 Larry McBroom laying out the plan for the contractor at Central Park.

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 Figure 8 New six inch sewer lateral installed to serve the Central Park restroom.

 Work has continued at the Geiser-Pollman park restroom this week.

Wastewater

 Maintenance and upgrades were completed at the wastewater treatment plant this week.

Figure 9 Rick Owens lubricating the "Muffin Monster" grinder at the wastewater treatment plant.

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  The Wastewater treatment facility continues to use sulfur dioxide to treat the water in order to reduce the
chlorine effects. The 150 pound containers must be changed nearly every day during times of high flow. As is
shown in the photo while one worker changes the container another worker stands outside the building making
sure they are not overcome by the chemical. The procedure is as follows: 1) the bottle changing team notifies a
third party that the bottle change is about to occur. 2) An anticipated time is allowed for the change. 3) The
bottle changing team performs the work. 4) The changing team notifies the third party that the job has been
completed. 5) If the changing team does not contact the third party after the allotted time, the team is re-
contacted (usually via cell phone). 6) If they cannot be contacted then a foreman is notified and emergency
services are called to respond.

Figure 10 Rick Owens replacing a sulfur dioxide container.

Streets
 Work on the Resort Street project continued this week. The City hired a contractor who used ground
penetrating radar to map out the vaults under the sidewalk on Resort Street.

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 Figure 11 Jay Fuzi working with the contractor as vaults are located under the sidewalk.

 Crews graded and spread gravel as needed on some of the gravel streets.

Figure 12 Tom Hayes and Tim Wood spreading gravel on 15th Street near Place.

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  The Street Department assisted the police department in shutting off some streets while
they worked on a police incident.

Figure 13 Dennis Bachman and Craig Dolby blocking the street for the Baker City P.D.

SAM-O SWIM CENTER

 No Report this week.

DEVELOPMENT SERVICES
Planning
The City & County Planners spent the week coordinating for the temporary maternity leave transition.
Building
Commercial projects:
 The Maverick Store and fuel service station is ready to issue from the building department but still needs to
submit more information for compliance to storm water requirements for Public Works Department.
 Two cell towers are proposed in the Huntington area construction plans are submitted for review.
 Two small storage buildings for Quest on Valley Street are proposed and are in planning at this time.
 Recovery Village has the roof dried in and sub-contractors for heating, electrical, plumbing, and fire sprinklers
are working on the rough installations of their work.
 A sign permit was issued to St Alphonsus on Pocahontas Rd.
Residential Projects:
 A new residence application on Washington Gulch in Baker County is submitted for review.

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FINANCE
Finance Director
 As of April 4th the City has received $2,546,358 in current year property taxes and $118,602 in prior year
property taxes.
 March’s revenue and expenditure report will be available April 22nd.

Utilities
 Zone 5 will be billed April 8th which includes 460 residential and 18 commercial accounts. Of those accounts
58 or 12% are signed up for direct payment.
 42 late notices were sent this week.
 Zone 5 turn offs will be next week since last week was a billing “skip” week.

Accounts Receivable
 Monthly accounts receivable billings were sent today. The billings were as follows:

 Property and Weed Abatement - $2,447

 Cemetery - $3,242
 HBC Business Licenses - $5,954
 City of La Grande Inspection Services - $3,227
 Wastewater Maintenance - $6,420
 Water Line Hookups - $3,367
 Lien Searches - $455
 Ambulance - $273,070
 Airport Hangar Rent & Ground Lease - $1,400
 School Resource Officer - $4,500
 Miscellaneous - $545

Total Billed $304,627

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