July 19, 2021

Merkley’s Field Assistant Visit – We are meeting with Jessica Keys from Senator Merkley’s Office to see the Tater Tot Trail Head and also the take off. We are meeting on Tuesday.
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Fly-in – The fly in was a great success. Lots of planes and lots of people. 

IGA for North/South Trail Project – Is drafted and then sent to Oregon Parks & Recreation Department an Intergovernmental Agreement for the North/South Trail Refinement Project. This is the $75,000 grant we received from the Oregon Community Paths program.

Planning Commission –On Monday night we had great participation from the residents who live around the proposed planned development for senior housing. The Planning Commission approved a recommendation to you. The meeting went about 3 hours due to the participation and turnout.

Tech Fair at the Ag Fair – We will be having a booth at the ag fair to get some feedback and worked out about the tech fair. Peter is doing the design backdrop for printing and Tori got me a booth.

Safety Grant – Peter did an on-camera interview with the KIVI today about your security grant. Hopefully, this is good publicity.

Public Works Committee – Met on Tuesday and had a productive meeting.

Parks Committee – It was an active meeting on Thursday night for Parks. This committee is awesome. There will be several items on your agenda for the 27th from the Parks Committee including improvements at both Lanterman and Beck Kiwanis Parks. The improvements include sand volleyball court, another dog park, and disc golf course.  

ODOT Covid Relief Money – Cities and Counties started receiving COVID relief money from President Trump’s package. Cities and Counties were caught unaware as this money started being dropped in their banks this week. According to ODOT’s website we are slated to receive $172,298. 

Downtown Attraction Kickoff 2.0 – We held our second kickoff meeting on Thursday, and I thought it went really well.  There are some great thoughts emerging.

AMERESCO – We are in the midst of putting together three projects with Ameresco. One is the lighting project and then we have a project in the water and waster funds. Two of these have some energy savings, but they have more to do with expanding our capacity to deliver projects. With so many engineering projects going on and capital projects we can use the ESCO project to deliver projects since the state allows us to use that as a streamlined process. We plan to take it to the Public Works Committee on the August meeting and then come to council after that. So, it will most likely not make it to the City Council until September because of the meeting schedule change.

Tater Tots Trail – We got comments back to the ROW specialist today. They said they are ready to execute once we are ok with the agreement. We had a few comments but nothing that is a deal breaker. I think we should have something for approval next week. Good news!

Comprehensive Homelessness Program – I sat down with a few community partners interested in working on this program today and we created a good working plan. We are going to write the concepts into a full-fledge plan. We are co-authoring the plan. I want to share it with our tiny shelter steering committee and the Malheur United Housing Task Force to get feedback from both.

Fire & Rescue
The Chief and I attended a work session for the Malheur communications study that has been worked on since the beginning of this year.  Some large improvements were recommended.  The chief, myself, Chief Romero, and some of you attended a summit at TVCC for direction for the school in the community and especially in planning for the new medical health building.  Some of the staff attended the Snake River Fire Chiefs meeting in Midvale. 

The Chief addressed 3 separate neighborhood complaints.  Corey’s house on 1300 block of Alameda, Bob’s Treasure Place SW 4th Ave and 6th Ave and SW 12th Street for an obstructed fire hydrant.

The crews trained on high angle rescue operations.

Truck 109 Raised the American Flag for the Antique Plane event held at the airport.

Incidents
7/9 The crew responded to a false fire alarm at City Hall and the Police Department.  7/10 Multiple crews responded to a lift assist for a large man.  7/12 N. Hwy 201 The crew responded to a vehicle fire that destroyed the engine compartment.  They also responded to a separate vehicle fire on I-84 MP 378 this one had little damage.  7/14 351 SW 9th Street Rescue 1 and Chief responded to a commercial alarm at St. Al’s. A smoke detector on the third floor went off but no problem was located.  7/15 1230 SE 14 Avenue Rescue 1 and Chief responded to a large fire reported by the freeway.  It turned out to be an illegal burn of a large pile of construction debris.  

Police
Staff conducted phase 1 of the OPD evidence room audit, which will provide phase 2 direction for OPD management.
 
Staff participated in an online demonstration of a crime analysis and tracking software program (Crime IQ) in hopes to expand OPD’s crime prevention and tracking capability. This would enhance OPD’s investigative capacity. 
 
Staff worked with public works to finalize strategies for responding to existing traffic hazards that exist in the northeast section of the city near the Americold corporation.
 
Staff authored OPD’s second public safety article, which will be published in the local newspaper outlet (Argus Observer).
 
Field Services
 
07-10: OPD responded to a hostile theft suspect at Walmart which resulted in a use of force (Tazing) of the suspect. Fortunately, no injuries to any of the involved officers or suspect.
 
OPD investigators continue to work diligently to solve a homicide case from the 4th of July, with numerous actions such as witness interviews, surveillance, search warrants, and forensic analysis being conducted to assist with identifying the person(s) responsible for the crime.
 
Code Enforcement

• Followed up on multiple parking complaints and tagged 72-hour tow notices to abandoned vehicles left on the city streets.
• Followed up on properties that had debris and weeds in public view.
• Followed up on dog bite case.
• Followed up on complaint for neighbors littering. Citation was issued.
• Followed up on multiple transient camps in the city limits and issued citation for 4.8.2 for location of camp in the city limits. Moved the subject on.
• Followed up on animal complaint for Dog Public Nuisance 6.2.12 case. The owner was issued a citation. 
• Followed up on animal complaint for dogs at large 6.2.6 and issued citation to the owner. 
• Followed up on found property.
• Followed up on transient hanging out around business sleeping in public view, moved along and trespassed.
• Followed up on complaints for city violations called in by citizen.