October 15, 2019

River Cleanup
The Snake River shore cleanup begins on Monday. This is a coordinated project with ODOT. Councilor Rodriguez asked to go down to the area so I accompanied him and several others on Thursday including the Malheur Enterprise. We were able to speak with some of the people in homeless camps and tell them about resources available. It was a very productive trip. There is a great deal of waste to clean up which includes human waste, trash, used needles, and other drug paraphernalia.

Malheur County United Housing Coalition
We met again on Monday. This is a newer work group formed about a month ago. I was asked to chair the committee with Barb Higinbotham. We will be working on long-term sustainable facilities for the homeless.

​PERS
2018 was a poor year for the PERS investment, but the outlook for 2019 is very good. They have earnings of 8.87% this year.

Alameda Intersection
We have a proposal for traffic calming measures behind Alameda Elementary. We will be distributing a proposed plan to the school.

4 Rivers Community School
I met with the Lego robotics Club at 4RCS this week to talk about community issues. They were a sharp bunch of kids.

​Community Development
Dan Cummings hosted a few PDAC’s this week. One is a new business that will be very nice for the community.

Police
Chief Romero attended a meeting with the Ontario Boxing Club and local fitness center (Go Fitness) to discuss potential outreach program(s) for the Ontario area youth population. The goal is to add an after-school alternative for working parent(s) and their children here in Ontario.

Chief Romero provided fundraising support (via procured business sponsors) to the Star Center for this weekend’s Cornhole Tournament at the Ontario Elks Club.

The Police Department is in the process of completing an after-action report regarding this past weekend’s concert event at the Hotbox Farms Grand Opening.

Chief Romero welcomed his first Ontario student mentee from the Four Rivers Community School. Chief Romero will serve as a professional mentor for the student’s high school senior project. The student was recommended by Principal Raeshelle Meyer.

Lt Cooper is managing a recent shooting investigation and all communications to the press regarding the incident and investigation (Press release published 10/10/2019).

Fire Rescue
Some of the staff attended the Malheur County Emergency Management Team meeting and learned from the National Weather Bureau.

We had 4 crews do smoke detector installations of over 50 smoke detectors. The crew had cardiac care and pacing reviews with TVP.

Both the Fire and Police Departments participated in the Home Depot Safety Fair with the public education trailer and fire engines. With this being fire prevention month the staff are doing public education for the first graders, so far they have presented at Aiken, May Roberts, Alameda, and Four Rivers elementary. They also visited a day care site on 3rd St.

The staff responded to an agency assist to get some people off a roof downtown, and a fuel spill on SW 4th Avenue. They also responded to fully involved vehicle and tractor fires. The crews responded to two mutual aid structure fires and then an equipment fire.

​Public Works
Field Services
Crack sealing in the NW part of town, our new crack fill machine is working extremely well. It is much more efficient than the old piece of equipment recently retired.

Footings were excavated and prepared for the new shelter in Lions Park. This is a replacement shelter for the one that fell in the snow storm of 2017. The footings will be poured late this week and then construction will begin the following week; the concrete pad and sidewalk to the new shelter will follow. Staff will erect the new shelter once the footings have been poured and cured.

Catch basin cleaning started and will be going through the fall.
Water
Jar testing for decreased organic load was completed multiple times this week to optimize the water quality.

Staff are preparing for debris and vegetation cleaning on city property located north of the water treatment. Crews from the City and ODOT will focus on bank stabilization and clearing debris from this area. A press release was generated and run in the local papers. City Police have been engaged in this activity.

Parks and Cemetery
Staff will begin winterizing underground irrigation systems later this month as temperatures cool.