Baker City Weekly Report

January 7, 2011

ADMINISTRATION
 The City Manager gave a short presentation to the Baker City Lions Club this week. The Manager is always
available to come and speak to any group about what is going on at the City.
 We met with Granicus again this week and we will be working to have this project completed by the meeting on
the 25th of January.
The Council has communicated individually or as a group to staff over the last week with questions or issues, I
have included some of those communications:
A question was asked concerning three streets near the golf course. The streets in question are Scenic Vista, View
Court and Fairway Heights. The question was why the City maintains Scenic Vista and View Court which have no
curbs or gutters; however they do not maintain Fairway even though it has sidewalks and a rolled curb. A rolled
curb is a curb that is even with the sidewalk and rolls down to pavement level at the street.

The City does not allow rolled curbs for a variety of reasons including the fact that drivers are more apt to park on
the sidewalk, they provide less safety for pedestrians, and they make snow removal more difficult. The City does
allow secondary streets, which are those that have no curb or gutter.

In 1999 the developer of Fairway Heights came to the City Council and requested that they allow him to build
rolled curbs and allow him to keep the street private so “the residents won’t ….. have to depend on the City to
maintain them”. The Council allowed the developer to do that. The City has done no maintenance on that street
since it was constructed.

In 2001 the developer for Scenic Vista came to the Council requesting that he be allowed to develop streets without
curb or gutter. The planning commission approved the plan and the Council did not oppose those types of streets.
Based on the fact that the City has a standard for those types of streets we do maintain those streets.

This can give the impression that the City is not being consistent in applying the rules when they actually are doing
exactly what was agreed on for each of the developments. There are several other private streets in the City and
they are treated the same as we treat Fairway Heights.

Potential Agenda Items for January 11, 2011:

 Oath for new City Councilors.
 Election of Mayor and Vice Mayor.
 Award for Parks and Cemetery Contract.
 Coordination agreement.

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  Liquor license Truck Corral.

POLICE

 BCPD opened 27 new cases this past week, making multiple arrests. An arrest was made in
the daytime residential burglary/gun theft case and BCPD recovered 18 of the stolen
firearms.
 BCPD is pleased to report that even with an added emphasis on DUII enforcement, no
arrests were made on New Year’s Eve. Sergeant McCormick reported that Baker Cab
appeared extremely busy and other companies were assisting citizens with rides home.
 BCPD provided, and our car seat technician Valeria Hysong installed, the first car seat of
2011. Using funds from an ODOT grant, BCPD was able to provide 79 car seats to Baker
City parents in 2010.
 BCPD also has received a $1,500 grant from ODOT for additional car seats for 2011.
 BCPD continued to work on the second biannual policy update and our 2010 annual
report.

FIRE
The Baker City Fire Department Responded to a total of 28 emergency alarms for the past week. Breakdown of
emergency responses:

FIRE
General Alarms 0
Still Alarms 4
TOTAL RESPONSES 4

Fire responses are broken down as follows:

 2 Fire Alarms (no fire found).
 Smell of gas in residence.
 Carbon Monoxide leak in a commercial occupancy with exposures to several victims.

AMBULANCE
Rural Calls 6
City Calls 18

Transports 19
No Patient Trip 5
Out of town transfers 2
Airport Transfers 1
Motor Vehicle Crash 4
Doubles 2

TOTAL RESPONSES 24

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TRAINING/MAINTENANCE:
3hours of training consisting of:
 EMS: Life Pack 15 training.
81 hours of station and equipment maintenance including:
 Weekly medication inventory and replacement of expired medications.
 Station, apparatus and equipment maintenance.
 Annual SCBA maintenance.
Additional services include:
 Happy New Year.

PUBLIC WORKS
Water
 Since last week, city crews have responded to approximately 12 calls regarding frozen water lines. Three of the
twelve services were frozen at the meter, the others were issues located in the service line beyond the meter.
There are no customers currently out of service.

Wastewater
 The photo below is of a sewer snake driven through the city mainline on 6th Street by a plumber trying to clear
blockage in a homeowner’s sewer lateral. After making its way through the mainline, the sewer snake became
lodged in the soil (18” past the mainline) and could not be retrieved through conventional methods. Karl Ritch
and Tom Hayes had to excavate the area in order to retrieve the snake, and repair the mainline. Excavating
asphalt this time of year can be somewhat of a cumbersome task, requiring jack hammering through asphalt and
then the frozen street base. The City is only responsible for the mainline; anything between the service and the
mainline is the property owner’s responsibility.

The plumber will be billed for the Cities cost of repairs.

Figure 1 Sewer snake in lateral running through the mainline.

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Figure 2 Karl breaking up the concrete on 6th Street.

Figure 3 Tom excavating the frozen street base.

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  Justin and Blain completed installing a 6” sewer lateral this week at Midway Drive. The lateral will serve
the future adult treatment facility at this site. A hydraulic hammer attachment was mounted on the backhoe
in order to bore through 24” of frozen ground.

Crews must always be cautious of utilities located in the vicinity of any excavation being done. The picture
below shows phone and power lines in the area where the sewer lateral was installed. Once a standard
request is called into the utility notification center, utility agencies have 48 business hours to locate their
utilities in the area to be excavated.

Figure 4 The crew painstakingly digs around phone and power utilities.

 Tim Wood and Tom Hayes constructed a concrete vault to be used as a wastewater access vault. The vault will
be placed in the alley between Main Street and 1st near Campbell. The vault will be used to access the mainline
and will allow the City to avoid building a manhole.

Figure 5 Tim and Tom construct the vault which will be moved to the alley location between Main and 1st.

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  Three sanitary sewer overflows were reported to Oregon D.E.Q. None of the three were a result of a plugged
mainline. Although these were not the responsibility of the City we are required to report the overflows. This
is an abnormal amount of overflows.
Parks and Recreation
 Applicants for the parks and cemetery maintenance contract were interviewed this week. Staff will present its
recommendation to council at the January 11th meeting.
Streets
 Crews removed the holiday wreaths and garland on Main Street and also took the candy canes down from 10th
Street. The Christmas tree on Court Street was taken down and the wood was hauled to the prison. Prisoners
will cut it into firewood, which will then be donated to the elderly.
 With the continuing cold temperatures, in order to provide better vehicle traction, crews have been busy sanding
more intersections in town than they normally do.

DEVELOPMENT SERVICES
Planning
 In preparation for the amendment to our City’s Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan) to adopt the new maps we
have been re-creating, it was discovered that the current copy of our Comp Plan is missing multiple pages,
maps, and tables. It appears that they were inadvertently omitted during a conversion from old technology.
Jenny has been busy researching the archives to resolve the discrepancies. A newly formatted and complete
copy of the Comp Plan is being prepared to include with the adoption of the new maps.
 A Conditional Use Permit (CUP) application has been submitted by T-Mobile for a new cell phone tower
located above the Smith Ditch near the Idaho Power Transmission lines.
Building
Total Residential and Commercial Permits Issued 2010:
200 issued Building permits
480 Electrical permits
248 Mechanical permits
143 Plumbing permits
12 Manufactured Home permits

 The Building Department staff completed 1366 inspections in 2010.

 The Electrical Inspection contractor completed 617 inspections.
 This does not include investigations of building without permits or code consultations for future construction at
job sites.
Commercial Projects:
 The Maverick convenience store and gas station a 2,000-sqft project will be submitting plans for review and
permits in about one week. It is going to be built at the corner of Campbell and Cedar in Baker city.
 The Lime Wind Generating Project is asking for cost of fees for financing approvals from the lenders. This will
be building permits and electrical permits.
 The Recovery Village on Midway drive will have the Stem-wall part of the foundation poured on Monday
weather permitting.
Residential Projects:
 No new Residential Building permits have been applied for in three weeks.

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FINANCE
Finance Director
 The budget committee will be meeting on Tuesday, January 18th at 6:00 p.m. Bob Seymour of Guyer &
Associates will be discussing the 2009-10 audit, I will be discussing the 2010-11 year to date status; the
upcoming budget calendar and the City’s revenue trends, and the budget committee will have a discussion about
the City’s priorities, philosophies and services.
 The 2009-10 annual financial report will be delivered at the January 25th Council meeting.

Utilities
 Zone 1 was billed today which includes 91 residential and 250 commercial accounts. Of those accounts 25 or
7% are signed up for direct payment.
 Seven residential customers (Zone 8) were scheduled to have their water turned off for non pay (over 60 days
past due) four of those were actually turned off.

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