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By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
WALDPORT – After the smoke clears from crunching numbers, second guessing past decisions and scrutinizing disinformation from critics, one thing is undisputable — Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue District is strapped for cash.
And unless that changes, the only option will be laying off personnel.
With that in mind, Oregon Coast’s board and the Waldport city council met last week to discuss three possible options. There was also a proposition to re-negotiate a loan, which council members quickly extinguished — although no decisions were made during the workshop.
The three items up for discussion were modifying a current resolution asking for funds from the Oregon Legislature, lowering loan payments on the dwntown station that the fire district makes to the city, and having the city pick up the tab for the district’s annual water bill.
Modifying the resolution for state funds is fairly straightforward. Last year the city asked Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis to seek $3.5 million or more from the legislature for “fire flow” funds for the city, which he did to no avail.
“Last year was the first year we actually got skunked,” Cutter said prior to the workshop. “Fire flow dollars are basically buying new pipes to put in the ground and it was not the highest priority for the state.”
The city was going to seek $4 million in fire flow funds this year, but Gomberg made clear to Cutter it was again not likely to happen. After further discussions and a tentative agreement between Cutter and COCFR chief Jamie Mason, a new plan was developed to instead have the fire district seek $1.35 million.
Gomberg has since made public that getting those funds is one of his top priorities and told Cutter it has a much better chance of success in the current session of the Legislature.
But how does $1.35 million for the fire district help the city with fire flow issues?
The simple answer is that the fire district would use $1.02 million to pay off the loan it secured from the city to purchase the fire station from the city in a May 2023 agreement. And the city would use that money to pay for its top fire flow priority and leverage the remainder to apply for grants for other civic projects.
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A brief history
Waldport city hall and the fire department once shared the building which the department uses today. From 2002 to 2022 the city leased half the building to the department for $1 a year, plus $1,200 to cover insurance costs.
In 2017 the city notified the fire district that a new lease would take effect in July 2022 at a discounted rate based on square footage. That lease amounted to annual payments of $40,000, with the caveat the district could subtract any building maintenance costs from that payment.
The city moved out of the building in 2021.
But when the district looked into applying for a seismic grant to repair, remodel and enlarge the building, it learned they would need to own it to qualify for the grant. They approached the city with that request and both the council and fire board finalized a sale of $1.02 million in May 2023.
The fire district made its first yearly payment but has yet to make the second payment, which was due in December. During last week’s meeting, councilors seemed amenable to lowering the second payment by $15,000 to account for the current inflation rate.
If the district receives the $1.35 million from the Legislature, it is expected to pay off the loan amount and get back any payments made to the city.
In turn, the city would likely use the loan proceeds to install an estimated $500,000 water line from the top of the Waldport Heights Ridge to Merten Drive, which is where the city has the lowest water pressure. The remainder of the money could then be leveraged as matching funds for grants to transform the former high school gymnasium it purchased in 2022 into a community center.
The proposal
Fire district board member Jon MacCulloch made clear he was speaking on behalf of himself and not the board when he asked whether the city might accept lowering the loan payback amount to $900,000 – leaving the district $450,000 to make station repairs if the Legislature approves the $1.35 million.
Among other things, the station needs a new roof, a second exit from the firefighters’ sleeping area, and replacement of walls that have succumbed to dry rot, MacCulloch said.
Councilor Jayme Morris said getting the repairs done “sounds great” but compared it to getting a loan from the bank and then returning two years later to ask the bank to reduce the payback amount because of unforeseen maintenance costs.
Councilor Susan Woodruff said the sale closed 18 months ago.
“It seems like we’ve already settled all of that,” Woodruff said. “I don’t think anybody is fighting over the deal at this point. We agreed on a deal.”
“He’s trying to get us to lower the price,” Morris said.
“I understand that, but he’s looking at it like it’s a re-negotiation and I think the negotiation is over,” Woodruff said. “I think that we’re willing to do several things that we’ve talked about to make it easier …”
MacCulloch then cut in to say if that is the case then he would go back to the fire board and suggest sticking with the current five-year lease agreement, which is 2½ years in, and hope that at some point a larger amount of money is secured from the Legislature. “And I don’t think that helps anybody.”
In November, voters rejected a fire district operations levy that sought an increase of 60 cents to the current $1.27 levy of $1,000 per assessed property value. That levy was approved in 2012 and the district unsuccessfully argued it needed an increase to keep up with inflation and the rising cost of personnel.
At the meeting, Mason said Central Coast will go back to voters again in May to ask for the increase in its operations levy.
“There really is no other way around it,” he said. “This is operational costs to maintain two people guaranteed response 24/7, plus, volunteers …We’re trying to make sure that we can maintain the services we are currently providing. Because if we can’t we’re probably going to lose about 50 percent of our staff.”
In conclusion
By the end of the meeting, it seemed clear the Waldport council had rejected the suggestion of lowering the loan payback amount but was receptive to lowering the December payment by $15,000. They also suggested the district request that the city to pay for their annual water bill, which was $4,000 this year.
“That is a very normal grant request amount that we get all the time in our community and economic development grant funding requests,” Cutter said. “So my suggestion is, this is the type of thing that you should go to the city every year for and say we just want to ask for money for our water bill for this year. It’s a drop in the bucket, but every bucket matters.”
Several days after the meeting, fire district board president Reda Eckermen said she thought the meeting went well and helped to bring two new city council members up to speed on the issues.
“This was more of a get acquainted and cut through some of the miasma of accusations and innuendos that seems to surround this area – the city government, the fire department, you know the keyboard warriors that keep feeding the fires,” Eckermen said. “I think from that standpoint it went well. The respective boards are going to have to make their own decisions (about what’s next) in their regular meetings.”
She does not think trying to reduce the cost of the building will be successful.
“You know, going back two years later and saying, ‘I don’t think it’s worth as much as we said it was back then’ … It is a tough sell. But the upside is, hopefully, if we get the money from the state and we pay off the building, everybody wins.
“Our taxpayers win, the water users win, the city wins, the fire district wins … so realistically I think that is our hope,” she said. “I keep buying lottery tickets though. Then it won’t be an issue.”
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
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