By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
When the 2021 Legislature adjourned Saturday it dropped more than $50 million into Lincoln County to help pay for 15 infrastructure projects or disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The allocations – from $190,000 to $14 million – range from repairing the city of Waldport’s failing main water tank, replacing the dock in Depoe Bay’s harbor, and beginning work on a crumbling dam that stores water for the city of Newport.
“I do not remember a legislative session when Lincoln County got this kind of money,” said Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis.
The Oregonian newspaper called the allocations to hundreds of projects across the state as a “mind-bogglingly long list of spending” enabled by Oregon’s $2.6 billion share of the latest round of COVID stimulus money, which states can largely use interchangeably as any other state revenue source.
The spending plans are outlined in House Bill 5006, Senate Bill 5506 and Senate Bill 5534.
Included are millions of dollars for fire districts to hire apprentices and for recovery and rebuilding projects in communities impacted by the historic 2020 wildfires. Hundreds of millions of dollars for affordable and other housing for the state’s most vulnerable residents. Hundreds of millions more for water infrastructure. Grants to help build community and aquatic centers around the state, expand museums and support an animal crimes forensic center, and a new laboratory for Oregon State Police.
Lawmakers on a budget subcommittee and then the full Ways and Means Committee approved the plans Thursday, sending them to the House and Senate for floor votes. Lawmakers finished their work Saturday, a day before the constitutional deadline of midnight Sunday.
House Bill 5006 also authorized $410 million in bonded debt for the Oregon Housing and Community Services agency to develop roughly 3,075 units of affordable and supportive housing for people who have experienced chronic homelessness and dedicate $100 million in general fund to preserve an estimated 1,600 units of existing affordable housing.
It contains more than $500 million for universities and community colleges to renovate, upgrade or build facilities.
Additionally, each of Oregon’s 90 lawmakers selected projects in their district to receive federal funds — $2 million for each House district and $4 million for each senator to decide, for a total of $240 million.
Gomberg and Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City agreed to pool their money and focus it on three projects in Lincoln County — $1.2 million to help pay for repairs to Waldport’s main water tank, $1 million toward replacing Depoe Bay’s docks, and $1.8 million for the Lincoln City Cultural Center’s plaza project.
Gomberg and Anderson each directed $500,000 to the Depoe Bay project and got a special legislative Capital Construction Committee to add $1.8 million to fully fund it.
The Lincoln City Cultural Center needed $1.8 million to complete its plaza project, so Gomberg and Anderson directed $900,000 each out of their allocation.
“I don’t know of any others who worked across party lines to do something like this,” Gomberg told YachatsNews.
Anderson’s Senate district also covers House District 9, represented by Rep. Boomer Wright, R-Reedsport, and which stretches from Yachats to Coos Bay. Anderson pooled the other half of his $4 million with Wright’s $2 million for a single project – to help the Port of Coos Bay buy a former Georgia-Pacific mill site near the port.
Millions more through committee
In addition to the Lincoln County legislators’ projects, they also helped get 12 local projects through a special Capital Construction Committee, which decided on hundreds of millions of dollars of spending.
Here are the three projects that Gomberg and Anderson used their allocation to fund:
- Waldport water tank: The city of Waldport’s main water 1.5 million gallon water tank is in desperate need of repair. In addition to Gomberg and Anderson’s $1.2 million, the Capital Construction Committee allocated another $975,000 for the project. “We have a tank that’s about to fall down,” said city manager Dann Cutter. “This will take care of that.”
- The docks in Depoe Bay’s harbor are key to that town’s tourist trade, are failing and the city has been struggling to find a way to pay to replace them. The $2.88 million in allocations will do that.
- The Lincoln City Cultural Center has been trying to raise $2.5 million to re-do the exterior grounds of its facility, the former Delake Elementary School. The $1.8 million from Gomberg and Anderson’s allocation will accomplish much of that.
Waldport officials expressed great pleasure Saturday.
“We greatly appreciate that our state leadership not only recognized the critical need of our city, but that they took special effort to allocate American Rescue Plan funding directly to these projects among the many competitive and compelling projects district wide,” said Mayor Greg Holland. “Their commitment to Waldport is incredible.”
The project seeks to address the significant degradation of Waldport’s large reservoir tank due to a poor re-coating years ago — the city recently won a lawsuit against the contractor — while upgrading its seismic resiliency as well as building a smaller secondary tank to allow for redundancy should either system need to be taken offline.
Here are the 12 Lincoln County projects funded by the Capital Construction Committee, using federal money and bonds from the Oregon Lottery.
- $5.1 million to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport to modify its three indoor galleries, including improving the flow of visitors, upgrading exhibits, new signs and interpretive materials, an expanded “touch” pool and help pay for the installation of new exhibits, including a live coral exhibit and a sea jelly gallery. The 2019 Legislature approved a $5 million appropriation for the aquarium’s projects, and the aquarium began construction in January 2020. However, the state’s appropriation was rescinded during the Coronavirus-19 health crisis due to a lack of lottery bond revenue;
- $4.05 million to the East Lincoln County Fire & Rescue district to build a fire station and communication center near Oregon Highway 20 in Eddyville;
- $3.05 million to the Greater Toledo Pool and Recreation District to make pool repairs and expand its facility into a community center;
- $2.55 million to the city of Lincoln City to build a welcome center at the D River wayside;
- $190,000 to Lincoln County for extra building and planning department costs due to the wildfires last September in Otis;
- $2.42 million to the Port of Toledo to extend a sewer line to a connection along Highway 20;
- $2 million for the Arch Cape Water District’s forest and watershed project;
- $1.8 million to replace a water reservoir of the Panther Creek Water District in Otis;
- $15 million to the Panther Creek Water District for septic and stormwater repairs;
- $500,000 to Lincoln County to help pay for well repairs;
- $750,000 to the Siletz Tribal Arts & Heritage Society for construction of the “A Place for the People” cultural heritage center;
- $14 million for planning, permits and beginning construction on the city of Newport’s Big Creek Dams, which hold the city’s water supply. The total estimated cost of replacing the dams is $80 million.
To read The Oregonian’s story on the statewide funding, go here.
To read The Oregonian’s end-of-session story, go here.
To look at the details of HB 5006, SB5506 and SB5534 go to the Oregon Legislative Information System here.
To see where 90 legislators directed money to go here.