As budget season approaches, Yachats council OKs initial capital spending plans, but wants community meeting on Commons

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

YACHATS – The Yachats City Council has taken the first step to develop one- to five-year spending plans that lays out millions for proposed projects ranging from street improvements to water and sewer projects to engineering of a riverside boardwalk and design of a green space behind City Hall.

The Capital Improvement Project plan approved last week is the result of work by city staff, city commissions and a newly revitalized Finance Committee to sort out and rank projects and determine if there is money in fiscal 2022-23 and beyond to pay for them.

The Finance Committee met twice this year to take recommendations from staff and the city’s four commissions to propose a ranking of capital projects. The city council heard a presentation April 7, held a special meeting April 13 to work on it more in depth and then approved the capital improvement project plan Wednesday.

After approving the Finance Committee’s recommendation, Mayor Leslie Vaaler reminded the audience, commissions and council members that it was just the first step in a three-stage process.

The CIP recommendation will be the basis of much of city manager Heide Lambert’s proposed 2022-23 fiscal year budget when it is released in May. The 10-member budget committee – five citizens and the city council – gets to work it over in May and June. Then comes a final discussion and vote by the council before July 1.

“It’s not saying there may not be changes along the way … but it is a reasonable starting point for the budget,” Vaaler said.

Because of city staff and council turnover and resulting turmoil in city hall, Yachats has not tackled much in the way of substantial projects the past 2-3 years. Some small projects and purchases will finish this fiscal year, which concludes June 30.

Meanwhile, the city is in very good financial shape because of the slowdown of spending the past two years and the continued strong flow of transient lodging taxes from motels and vacation rentals that has grown by 25 percent compared with receipts prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

The city has $5 million in reserves for spending on projects it chooses, and another $3 million in system development fees that go toward specific projects as needed, according to Tom Lauritzen, a member of the Finance Committee who has helped guide Lambert and the council through the CIP process.

While there are dozens or smaller expenditures, major projects in the 2022-23 capital improvement plan include:

• $140,000 for a backwash/recycle system for the water treatment plant;
• Nearly $400,000 to rebuild East Second Street, including water and stormwater systems, curbs and paving. The city has a $100,000 state grant to help offset costs;
• $250,000 for potential land acquisition for raw water storage tanks;
• $110,000 for engineering plans for a proposed boardwalk along Ocean View Drive between Beach Street to near Highway 101; $150,000 for initial construction, and $200,000 to bury utilities currently on the south side of the street;
• $35,000 to repair facia and gutters on the Commons building and $105,000 for design and beginning work on the proposed greenspace behind city hall.

Struggles with Commons requests

Over its two meetings on capital improvement projects, Lambert and most council members struggled over spending requests from the city’s Parks & Commons Commission, which has been working on proposals for two years but found it hard to get anything started while the city was short-staffed.

While the commission’s green space proposal is proceeding, the council delayed spending on requests to extensively remodel the Commons north entrance, install steps from the Highway 101 sidewalk, paint the exterior, build outside restrooms and rebuild the basketball court on the west side of the building.

Lambert and councilors said they want the commission to step back and develop a five-year plan for the Commons and surrounding property. No commission members attended the last three council meetings to describe, explain or defend their spending requests.

After a unanimous vote to approve the capital improvement project plan, Councilor Ann Stott said she wanted Parks & Commons Commission members to know the council values their work, but that the council wanted a bigger picture and a five-year plan for the Commons and immediate surroundings.

“We want to make sure we have a solid plan for the Commons before we undertake a remodeling,” Stott said, asking the council to immediately host an in-person community gathering to collect comments from residents. “We need a vision for the Commons building itself.”

In other business Wednesday the council:

• Appointed Julie Bailey to a vacancy on the Planning Commission, bringing it to six members. The commission still has an open seat with the resignation Tuesday of Ariana Carlson, who has moved out of the area. Bailey has been a Yachats resident for four years, had visited for 40 years and owned a successful herb business for 30 years;
• Agreed to start a three- and six-month evaluation process for Lambert, who started the city manager’s job in mid-February. Councilors said they would discuss a format in May and then finish the initial evaluation in June;
• Terminated a 2-year-old contract with Community Lending Works of Springfield so the city could get back $80,000 of the $100,000 it made available for low-interest business loans during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Only two Yachats businesses took advantage of the program and the money has been sitting unused since July 2020;
• Completed its bi-monthly meeting in just over one hour, a near-record time noted by Vaaler. That led Stott to quip that the short meeting dropped the council’s “average meeting time to four hours.”