Grant County Court amended minutes: Oct. 14, 2020

Published 11:00 am Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Grant County Court amended minutes from Oct. 14, 2020:

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Pursuant to notice made to the newspaper of general circulation throughout Grant County, the radio station, county website, and e-mail distribution list, a regular meeting of the County Court was held at the County Courthouse in Canyon City, OR.

9:00 am — Call to Order. Present were Judge Scott W. Myers, Commissioners Jim Hamsher and Sam Palmer, Administrative Assistant Kim Puckett, Economic Development Director Tory Stinnett, Planning Director Shannon Springer, Reporter Steven Mitchell, Reporter Logan Bagett, and Pastor Randy Johnson. A Pledge of Allegiance was given to the United States Flag.

CLAIMS. The court had approved claims & Extension Warrants #151-158.

HAND CHECK. The court approved outside of normal claims day checks # 60145 & 60182.

AGENDA. MSP: Myers/Hamsher– to accept the agenda as amended to approve the minutes from

September 23rd, 2020.

ANNOUNCEMENTS. Judge Myers did job performance reviews on September 30th. He met with the Soil & Water Conservation District for a weed spraying discussion. He attended the District 1 Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) meeting via phone. Myers attended the Charles Baker retirement celebration. Saturday October 10th he performed a wedding at 11:00am. On October 12th he participated in the Association of Oregon Counties Legislative Committee meeting via phone and attended the Airport Commission meeting held at Grant County Regional Airport. He will announce opening bids for rock crushing at 2:00pm at the County Road Department. After Court on the 14th there will be a work session at 1:30 pm at the Airport topics to discuss Transient Lodging Tax, Infrastructure Improvements (Broadband & Streets) and Gleason Pool Replacement. Myers will attend the Long Creek Communications Tower Project site visit with AT&T.

Commissioner Palmer participated in weekly calls with State Senators, Representatives and Commissioners. He talked with William Crozer, Special Council to the President, in regards to the Murderers Creek Project. Palmer had multiple phone conferences, including one with Linda Watson regarding the Local Community Advisory Council (LCAC), one with Mayor Delano in regards to Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, (CARES) funding, and one with Representative Owens about a local business getting a Construction Contractors Board (CCB) number, which they got the next day. He attended a virtual Eastern Oregon Counties Association (EOCA) meeting. Palmer wrote a letter in opposition to Senator Wyden’s legislation to increase funding for prescribed fire, and he asked for increased funding for Comprehensive Forest Management. He attended the candidate’s forum at the Smith’s residence. Palmer had a long conversation with Senate Candidate Jo Rae Perkins. He met with Tory Stinnett, Economic Development Director and Stephanie LeQuieu from Oregon RAIN regarding to CARES funding. He also attended the Mt. Vernon City Council meeting on the 13th to advocate for food security. Palmer mentioned that he was reappointed to the Ag & Natural Resources Committee by the National Association of Counties (NACO).

Commissioner Hamsher continued to take part in the Oregon Health Authority weekly Coronavirus Commissioner briefing calls. He also participated in briefing calls with the League of Oregon Cities, and with State Senator’s & Representatives and the Association of Oregon Counties (AOC). He took part in a Blues Intergovernmental Council (BIC) Steering Committee meeting for Social Economics. Hamsher attended a monthly meeting with AOC Veteran’s Steering Committee. He also took part in a very interesting call with The White House regarding programs they are getting for Senior’s and Nursing Home Facilities. They had good news that a new test was developed and is called BinaxNOW it’s a card they can do on site allowing for quick results in as little as 15 minutes, where they do not have to go in and use the actual machine. Hamsher had a discussion with Kimberly Lindsay, and they have ordered 1,000 of these for the Hospital and Health Department this could help protect our most vulnerable populations from Covid-19 such as Nursing Homes and Senior Care Facilities in the future. President Trump was scheduled to speak on the call, although it was the same day he tested positive for Covid-19. Vice President Pence did participate and provided a lot of good information. He attended the AOC District 1 meeting via phone. Hamsher said he was asked to be a panelist on the Brownfield Infrastructure meeting regarding wildfire recovery and how to get information out to Southern and Western Oregon Communities devastated by the recent wildfires. Hamsher also took part in briefing calls with the Governor’s office. He sat in on the AOC Natural Resource Steering Committee meeting and the AOC Public Safety Steering Committee meeting. He attended a meeting with Senator Findley and Representative Owens. A Natural Resources Advisory Committee (NRAC) meeting was held and they failed to get a quorum, although they did get a lot of the NRAC members to send in comment letters and meet the deadline Hamsher thanked Chairperson Billie Jo George for her help with this. They now have several comment letters besides the County Court ones sent in. He took part in an Eastern Oregon Rural Caucas meeting and will participate in another one Thursday morning. Hamsher said he has a call scheduled today with The Whitehouse. He was invited to take part in the Eastern Oregon Regional Equity Recovery Council meeting for Wildfires in the State to be held on Thursday. He attended the meet and greet and listened to the Candidates for State and Local Offices.

MINUTES. MSP: Myers/Hamsher– to approve the September 23rd minutes as presented.

PLANNING DEPARTMENT. Shannon Springer, Planning Director, said the Flood Ordinance update has been going on since last spring. Periodically Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) does a Community Assistance visit to evaluate what each jurisdiction is doing in order to direct development in a flood zone and part of that is they look at the Flood Ordinance. In the course of that visit there were some deficiencies in the current Flood Ordinance most of it was specific wording. They wanted wording to match the Federal wording verbatim, so most changes in the Ordinance address the verbatim word changes. The Planning Commission reviewed it and made a recommendation to the County Court to approve it. This was started in July. In August notification was received that flood maps for Silvies Watershed would receive a letter of final determination the end of September. In speaking with the National Flood Insurance Program Coordinator, she suggested that it would be appropriate to postpone adoption of the Ordinance so that we can include the new maps for the Silvies Watershed. Prior to these maps there were no special flood hazard zones identified in the Silvies Watershed within the County’s jurisdiction, although there were some in the City of Seneca. These maps established special flood hazard areas from Seneca, East along Bear Creek, and from Seneca South along the Silvies River. Those areas had not been identified as special flood hazard zones, it’s not that flooding wasn’t possible, just not shown on the map. At the County Court hearing in August the Court agreed to postpone the hearing so the Silvies maps could be included. At the County Court’s direction notification was sent out to everybody that would be affected. Notice was sent to the original recipients as well as property owners affected by the new Silvies flood maps. Property owners in the Silvies Watershed did not receive notice for the Planning Commission Hearing and the first County Court Hearing. Since the mailed notice Springer has received calls from a couple of property owners from the Silvies area. They were not able to participate in the previous hearings on the Flood Ordinance because they were not notified. At that time there wasn’t a flood zone that affected their property. She said one would like to be involved in the hearing and he is out of town and was unable to attend. Today a letter was received asking the Court to continue this Hearing until a later date so that he could participate. The other person indicated they were going to participate in some way, although Springer had not heard from them. The first meeting related to flood mapping in the Silvies Watershed was in Harney County in 2011. It was started as a result of the damage that occurred in Harney County from the flooding earlier that spring. Because parts of Grant County are in the Silvies Watershed, the mapping included that part of Grant County. Commissioner Hamsher asked Springer to explain why the Flood Ordinance is necessary. We must update the ordinance to continue to participate in National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) program to allow residents access to flood insurance. MSP: Hamsher/Myers —to extend the comment period to November 18th, 2020.

Judge Stinnett entered at 9:35 am, Alan Hickerson & Tammy Workman entered 9:41 am

Stephanie LeQuieu entered 9:50am

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. Tory Stinnett, Economic Development Director, requested approval to begin the hiring processes for an Economic Development Specialist. It is currently set for 30 hours a week at $19.56 per hour. The budget is set for this position at $30,556 annually. Since she will be hiring around December there will be finances within that line to fund the position full time through this 2020-2021 fiscal year. The additional costs for next year would be around $13,000 on the high end, including benefits. Stinnett is requesting to be approved to save the county funding. Stinnett also talked about other funding potentially available for local businesses. There is a link to the county page where the applications can be found. Stephanie LeQuieu, Oregon RAIN, updated the Court on the activities by Oregon Rain in the Community. MSP: Palmer/ Hamsher –to approve hiring a full-time staff until end of fiscal year and full time status will be revisited during this next budget process. Treasurer would like it noted that the above figures should be $47,214 and $20,000.

Glenn Palmer entered 9:52am

SHERIFF’S OFFICE. Glenn Palmer, Sheriff, surprised and then recognized the service of Deputies Wade Waddell and Josh Wolf. In September 2019 they both attended a 52 hour training course through the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST) and received their Supervisory Certificates. Palmer stated they have reached a milestone in the Sheriff’s office not only Wade Waddell and Josh Wolf earn these certificates, but Zach Mobley and Danny Komning also attended Command College. Palmer stated that it is a very intense training. All of the Supervisory positions at the Sheriff’s Office are certified through DPSST. He wanted to take the time to recognize them all in front of the County Court and the Public.

ROAD DEPARTMENT. Alan Hickerson, Road Master, discussed the intent to award the Rock Crushing contracts. MSP: Myers/Palmer–to sign the intent to award the bids. Hickerson said that in 2020-2021 the Road Department budgeted and requested a new snow plow at the cost of $15,316. The budget was approved and the new snow plow was ordered. The new snow plow showed up last week and is the wrong plow for their application. Somewhere in the conversation with the salesman he misunderstood what was needed in a snow plow and ordered the wrong one. Hickerson said he is also at fault for not double checking the model number. The Road Department is requesting adding $2,337 to the existing budget for the correct snow plow. The funds would be taken out of Capital-Outlay – Heavy Equipment Line – 5-40-0009. MSP: Hamsher/Palmer –to approve the purchase of the correct snow plow. The Road Department has also received a bid from Executive Carpet Cleaning & Duct Cleaning for $886. The bid is based on 12 registers. The quote includes the following. 1.) Using a roto-vision camera to inspect all ductwork to insure proper working form. 2.) Cleaning every run by a running brush down every register. 3.) Running the camera again to ensure the ductwork has been properly cleaned on every run. 4.) Fogging the whole system for odor control.MSP: Hamsher/Palmer –to approve moving forward with the ductwork cleaning.

Kimberly Lindsay & Chris Northway entered 10:20 am

Rob Raschio entered 10:25

COMMUNITY COUNSELING SOLUTIONS. Kimberly Lindsay, Director and Chris Northing, Director of Juniper Ridge gave the court an update on Juniper Ridge upcoming changes. Below is a list of items discussed:

Increase in number of acute care beds in state

Juniper Ridge Acute Care Center (JRACC) has operated on a thin margin and this increase in beds will have a negative impact upon JRACC

State is willing now to add SRTF beds (prior administrations have not and in the future the tide may change again) and there is funding to remodel now but not after December.

Given this, the decision has been made to transition JRACC from an acute care to SRTF facility

Juniper Ridge will continue to take admissions until October 26th and will discharge its last person by November 4th.

In an SRTF facility, there is no requirement and therefore no funding for 24/7 nurses. There is funding for one Secure Residential Treatment Facility (SRTF) nurse and the decision was made based upon seniority and performance. Four nurses were notified that their positions were being eliminated.

Severance package was offered to nurses.

This has been a very, very difficult decision causing lots of thought, lack of sleep, and hard conversations. It is not what they want but it is the direction they feel we need to go if they want Juniper Ridge to continue to be operation, albeit a different operation, by this time next year.

Construction will begin on November 9th.

There is a good chance that they will be able to operate as an SRTF and take some Oregon State Hospital (OSH) residents by the middle of November. Given this, the remainder of the staff will remain in a paid status and will work, however, their work schedules are likely to change or be reduced.

There is still one more conversation that needs to occur before they are absolutely certain of the change, and that is notification to the community and learning community sentiment. If there is a lot of concern, there is a possibility that JRACC will shut down altogether.

Provide opportunity for feedback via email and mail, and possibly hold a virtual community meeting

BOPTA BOARD MEMBERS. The court reviewed and appointed Board of Property Tax Appeals (BOPTA) Board Members. MSP: Hamsher/Palmer –to appoint Shannon Springer, Bob Quinton, and Scott W. Myers to the Board.

PUBLIC COMMENT. The court accepted public comment.

11:0am Adjourned

Respectfully Submitted,

Kim Puckett

Administrative Assistant

**** Please note the court minutes are a summary of the court proceedings. An audio recording of each court session is available, after approval of the minutes, by contacting Kim Puckett at 541-575-0059 or puckettk@grantcounty-or.gov **

Grant County Court original minutes from Oct. 14, 2020: