January 28, 2020

Council Strategic Planning Session
The planning session was very valuable to staff to have guidance in putting together your budget.

Budget
We wrapped up meetings with individual departments early this week and next week we will use the strategic guidance to collaboratively put together a budget for the Budget Committee and City Council.

Chamber Leadership Program – We hosted the chamber leadership program this week. We were able to talk about what we do and how we work together to accomplish the city council’s goals.

Temporary Winter Shelter Project
We hosted a second community forum Thursday night to listen to thoughts on the winter shelter project. We had great attendance probably over 30, which was double last weeks meeting. The units are under production and awaiting inspections. Some could arrive on site next week. Everything else is ready to be place as soon as the units arrive.

Community Forum 
The Malheur Enterprise will be hosting the next community forum on homelessness on February 18. 

Marijuana Ad Hoc Committee 
The committee met on Wednesday night. It went very well, and we had good attendance from the committee. The committee authorized the chair to write a letter to the state on behalf of the committee to request a change to the distribution formula. They wanted to have a united front with the community on the issue.

Wayfinding and Downtown Attraction 
We met with Trademark in Boise on Thursday morning. Their first concepts really blew me away. The concepts for the wayfinding were equally impressive. They want to meet with our design committee next week. 

Ameresco – I spent the afternoon with Ameresco visiting city facilities for the energy efficiency study. They were very impressive in their questions to our staff. It looked to me like they are going to be able to pull together a project that self-funds improvements to our facilities.

Police
Chief Romero attended the Boys and Girls Club board meeting and “Great Futures” campaign Kickoff.

Chief Romero conducted an interview with the Argus Observer regarding the road slurry concern in the southeast area of the city. The chief hopes that a public service announcement approach with what will become a “ZERO TOLERANCE” enforcement approach will have a positive impact on this recurring community concern. Leslie reached out to me and Cliff Leeper about the spill on Monday.

Chief Romero and Detective Esplin finalized MOA & MOU contracts with a federal law enforcement agency to secure federal assets for assisting OPD with major crime cases as the chief deems necessary. If agreed upon by both agencies and appropriated by the city, OPD will also receive federal funding to cover the cost of any overtime, incurred by sworn OPD personnel during joint investigations.     

Chief Romero interviewed with Boise Channel 2. Channel 2 wants to run a follow-up story on the recent approval by city council to repair/replace OPD’s communications equipment, and the county’s recent grant request to conduct a study of the county’s radio system infrastructure, which is connected to OPD’s.

Field Services
Since 1/17/20 several Ontario Police Officers have made over 12 arrests, ranging from warrants, drug possessions, thefts, burglaries, unlawful entry into motor vehicles, criminal trespasses, fraud, recklessly endangering another person, strangulation and assaults. 

Officer Johnson investigated a robbery at Walmart where a female subject was attempting to steal property and upon being contacted by Walmart employees brandished a handgun. Walmart employees immediately backed off and called police. Officer Johnson working with Walmart and Idaho law enforcement agencies were able to identify the suspect and she was arrested in Idaho and will be facing numerous charges in Oregon.

Officer Llamas and Sgt Walters were able to locate a wanted subject, inside a vehicle and take him into custody for several outstanding felony and misdemeanor warrants. This subject had been eluding Officers for several weeks and is the same subject referenced last week, that had fled in female attire. Chronic problem solved.

Sgt Walters and Officer Llamas arrested a male subject for an outstanding warrant and were able to recover a stolen four-wheeler that had been stolen from a residence in Malheur County. 

Llamas and Sgt Walters were able to locate and arrest a male subject that was in possession of a stolen credit card and had been committing fraudulent transactions with it in Ontario. 

Detective Esplin and Sgt Swank were able to seize approximately 4 ounces of Meth and prevent it from being distributed in our community and surrounding communities. This is part of a larger on-going investigation. 

Code Enforcement:
OPD ‘On-boarded’ our second full-time ordinance officer, Richard R. Reyna. OPD is appreciative for the support from the city council. Mr. Reyna will be in training for the next couple weeks and will be quite visible in our community.

Chronic blight location just south of second and vine restaurant was successfully abated. Property owner complied with notice and front yard was cleaned and debris was properly discarded. Location looks much more appealing and does not drag down the “Business of the year” any longer.

The OPD temporary dog kennel and surrounding area of the kennel (city hall) was cleaned out by our two code enforcement officers. The kennel and surrounding area looks new and OPD personnel are donating a dog house, dog bed, and new food and water bowls for the k-9’s that are at times, temporarily housed in the kennel.

The Chief wanted to share that on January 11th, Lieutenant Jason Cooper was selected as the Treasure Valley “Officer of the Year” by the Elks Lodge. Lt. Cooper was praised for his great contributions to OPD and Law Enforcement as a whole.
Office Manager/ IT Supervisor Sheri Smith was awarded “Police Support” person of the year and was praised for her many contributions over the year to OPD and to the community, through her traffic safety initiatives (Car seats & Traffic School instruction).

Public Works
Field Services
Crews responded to spill of unknown origins on SE 2nd, a street sweeper was dispatched, and the absorbent material swept up.

Sign maintenance, replacing faded signs throughout the community with new signs that meet reflective codes. This is a work in progress.

The water service for the homeless site was connected and a new frost-free faucet installed. Water is available at the location.

4 Staff members attended training in fall protection and confined space, this training was provided by one of Jacob’s in-house training professionals.

Water
The wood debris piles burned last week continue to smolder and should be completely out by the end of the week. Plans for adding soil and leveling the area are in the design phase.

A new water heater for our chlorine generation system was installed and is running as per design.

Wastewater
NPDES permit sampling continues as per DEQ requirements.
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Bids were received on the Farming operations at the Malheur and Skyline properties. We hope to make a recommendation to you in the near future.

Parks and Cemetery
We are working with the new surveillance camera system installer to help in the installation process.