Oregon City Council recently approved its 2019 municipal budget.
City Administrator Mike Beazley at a council meeting on Dec. 17 thanked city officials for their work on the budget.
“We made a statement of priorities for the year,” he said of the budget. “We recognize that a budget is just a plan and an estimate, and that it changes from month to month through the year. But it’s good for us to go through the process.”
Beazley said Oregon, like most communities, spends the vast majority of the general fund on public safety, police, fire and courts.
“The budget is spent on making the community work. Overall, our capital investment focuses on maintaining our roads, and on our water and sewer infrastructure,” said Beazley. “We feel good about that process. We have things to resolve during the year. We’re excited about the projects that council has identified for us to work on. We’ll look forward to continue to explore those together during the coming year.”
Property acquisition
Councilman James Seaman, who is chairman of the Finance Committee, told The Press last week that the total amount of appropriations in the budget was just over $30 million.
Some of the new expenses include the underground installation of overhead lines from Isaac Streets Drive to Coy Road on Navarre Avenue, and the purchase of property as part of the city’s downtown development project.
“We’re shifting into a land acquisition phase. We’re looking to purchase four significant pieces of land for future downtown development,” he said. The property is in a corridor just south of the former K-Mart on Navarre up to Pickle Road near the YMCA, he added.
“We’re not looking to make a profit with this land. We want to sell it to developers to create some jobs and make improvements to our quality of life for our residents. That’s our payoff,” he said.
Aging waterlines
Other new expenses include local road and sidewalk improvements, upgrades in the fire and police departments, a new roof and parking lot for the senior center on Navarre Ave., and the replacement of waterlines.
“We’re planning a lot of waterline upgrades. Some of our waterlines are quite old. We have to have money set aside to make improvements. Some of our lines are over 90 years old,” he said. “They’re starting to have problems, and we have to go in and fix them.”
Improvements in the police department include the purchase of four new police cruisers. The fire department will see changes to improve response times to emergency calls. The department plans to expand the hours to run the Echo unit, which is a full rescue vehicle, from 12 hours to 24 hours per day.
The department will also be paying specific people on staff to be available to respond to calls. Also, there are plans to hire additional Advanced Life Support (ALS) officers. For the first time in Oregon, the ALS unit and BLS (Basic Life Support) unit will be operating full time.
At the Dec. 17 council meeting, Seaman thanked officials for their their work on the budget, which was discussed at length in several Finance Committee meetings.
“There was great participation from council,” he said. “Everyone showed a deep interest in this process.”
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Gary Schmidt appointed #ClackCo Administrator #ClackCo Commissioners have appointed Gary Schmidt ( above left ) as the next County Administrator. Schmidt replaces Donald Krupp ( above right ), who retired at the end of January. Schmidt has served as #ClackCo Public and Government Affairs Director since 2011. Schmidt will begin his new role on Feb. 25. "Gary is a lifelong resident of Clackamas County who brings a wealth of internal experience and knowledge about our county," said Clackamas County Chair Jim Bernard. "He is well positioned to continue the incredible progress we have made over the past several years."
Oregon graduation rate nears 80 percent after 2nd year of solid gains Updated 11:36 AM ; Posted Jan 24, 8:03 AM By Betsy Hammond | The Oregonian/OregonLive Oregon’s high school graduation rate improved by 2 percentage points for a second straight year, marking the most sustained improvement in a decade, the state reported Thursday. Statewide, 79 percent of students in the class of 2018 earned diplomas within four years, the Oregon Department of Education said. The gains were broadly shared, with Latinos, Native Americans, whites, low-income students, girls and boys all matching or exceeding the statewide rate of improvement. The improvement in the statewide rate meant 935 more students earned diplomas last spring than would have done so, had the rate held flat. The most glaring exception to the otherwise rosy report was among black students, whose on-time graduation rate remained mired at 68 percent after showing steady gains the previous ...
