August 24, 2020

​Merchant McIntyre – The full submission for the Our Town Grant was made on Tuesday evening. All our community partners came together to get all the necessary pieces together.  It sure was nice to have someone else with experience coordinating the entry.

COVID
City and County ICS – Both City and County ICS teams met. We are good on PPE between both the City and County.

State Conference Call – The Governor held a live broadcast at noon today. The Governor is asking everyone to step up their own self-governance of the guidelines. Her request for local officials to lead by example, educate first, and enforce when necessary. Her plea is to solve it ourselves so she doesn’t have to intervene.

LOC Conference Call - The testing market is dynamic at an international and national level. We are getting faster results on tests in our county, but there is still a shortage on the number of tests coming our way. The state is mixing up the testing as the market changes.

Boots on the Ground Team – Our local response team met this week and listened to a presentation about an online incubator in rural Oregon. This could be a nice platform to move towards a brick and mortar incubator. It’s called Reinventing Rural. They have had great success in helping launch rural businesses. It’s a free open-source platform for small businesses.

We are investigating whether our 40-50% business program must go through Business Oregon. Also, as we talked about the most recent change the SBDC is getting 8-12 calls a day with anxious and frustrated business owners, which is completely understandable given the uncertainty.

BLM Airbase – I was able to connect with the BLM office out of Denver about the $2.5 million grant. They are still working on their final design for their tarmac and she assured me that the grant will roll over to the next fiscal year. They are working on getting agreements together though. I also had a call with Business Oregon to discuss the financing of the project.

SRCI Fire Service – Mediation is on Monday. This is very short timing to get something together, but I am working on it.

​Transportation System Plan – We had a TSP meeting his week. We got good public feedback on the East Idaho Design. 

​Automation – Our staff leadership team listened to one provider of automated services. We have another next week. This is to make more services available online.

Fiber – IT and I met with LS Networks to talk about next steps for fiber service.

We have a third party that will be helping us with the service to other airport customers. We are working on an agreement with him.

Homeless Emergency Shelter Siting – I joined a call with Community in Action this week to talk about next steps for the winter emergency shelter. I created a shelter siting committee to ensure we have stakeholder representation and public input into the process.

Airport
Monday began with the loss of irrigation water due to a burned wire in an electric panel. Fortunately, there was no fire and it was repairable. Water was restored Tuesday.

We were finally able to close out the grant from two years ago with the FAA for taxiway lights, signs, and VASI lights.

The contractor selected to do the new taxiway and hold apron will also be relocating the irrigation ditch. They are putting it to their engineer now and will then submit a proposal.

There were two bids submitted for the mowing and maintenance at the Airport. We will bring a recommendation for award on the 3rd.

Due to the high volume of fuel sales at the Airport from the firefighting aircraft, it is estimated the city will make nearly $1,600 from flowage fees just from last week’s sales. Both Burns and John Day ran out of fuel and the firefighting efforts there had to stop.

The Federal Aviation Administration called to say the grant has gone through channels for the taxiway and hold apron and should be sent to us within the next two weeks.

Fire & Rescue
8/19 The building official and Chief inspected projects at River Drive, Malheur County Child Development, Sunset Drive and West Idaho Avenue, and Reiter Drive.

The staff is still training with social distancing so another circuit drill of drone, water supply, and water rescue.

Incidents
8/14 Rescue 1 assisted the OPD with the thermal image camera looking for a suspect/ They also responded to a controlled burn on East Island Road and a vehicle fire on the 700 block of NE 3rd Avenue. 
8/16 The crew responded to a dumpster fire at 254 SE 2nd Street. 
8/17 the crews responded to multiple grass fires along Railroad Street by Clark and Lincoln.
8/19 Rescue 1 responded to a possible arson where someone had set a fire at the front door of a house on the 200 block of NW 2nd Avenue. The fire was out upon the crew’s arrival, but they cleared the smoke out of the house.  The crew responded to a burning complaint on NW 36th Street and a dumpster fire at 995 Manor Way. 
8/20 the crew and extra staff twice had to respond to assist with the loading and transport of a very large man needing medical treatment.

Public Works
COVID-19 Update
The Public Works office is closed to public and non-essential employee access. Jacobs has one COVID-19 positive case who is self-isolating until symptoms improve. At this time, it is believed that none of Jacobs Ontario staff have been exposed to this case.

Field Services
Hot taping cross walks continues around town. Weed removal is taking place on city owned properties Crews have removed the sunken sidewalk and gutter at Aquatic Center and poured new gutter and will pour sidewalk next week.

Crews sealed and painted the Skate Park Bathroom this week. We began construction of the holding pit for the bio-solids removal project at Skyline Farm. We also swept Downtown and finished the full town sweep this week.

Wastewater
The contractor for the pH adjustment project is onsite removing obsolete equipment. The project is on track for completion by the third week in August. 

Facilities
City Hall HVAC UV lights are in the works.

Engineering
The Mercury Minimization plan for the waste treatment plant is under final review before submitting it to Oregon DEQ.

​Work resumed on the Skate Park Bathroom. The roof was installed this week and the field services staff will sand and seal it next week.