Local officials faced criticism from people who oppose a proposal for a temporary tax levy to fund the John Day Police Department in a town hall July 27 at the Grant County Fairgrounds.

The meeting, moderated by Seneca rancher Jack Southworth and attended by roughly 40 people, prioritized questions and comments surrounding the city’s five-year proposed tax levy of 45-50 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value for police funding.

Along with John Day City Manager Nick Green and Mayor Ron Lundbom, City Councilors Heather Rookstoool, Elliot Sky, Paul Smith and Dave Holland took questions during a wide-ranging session after ballots for the levy special election arrived in mailboxes last week.

Citizens express concerns

While the decision on the levy rests only with John Day voters, members of surrounding communities also provided feedback.

“It’s all about principle,” Prairie City resident Frances Preston said. “Everyone in Grant County has an opinion on this.”

She said the city should have made the police department a priority a long time ago. Now, she said, the city has created a scenario where they can put the blame on those who vote against the police levy as those who chose to do away with the police department.

Preston handed out flyers at the meeting that listed several concerns. Preston said Bob Pereira came up with the lion’s share of the content in the flyer, but others contributed as well.

Instead of a tax, they proposed two alternatives to keep the city’s police force.

The first, which they said does not fit the city’s “narrative,” would be to close John Day’s greenhouse. The other, they say, would be to lay off one of the department’s patrol officers.

Lay off a patrol officer

They argued that laying off one patrol officer would give the department a surplus.

However, John Day resident Darrin Toy asked Police Chief Mike Durr what effect laying off one patrol officer would have on the police department.

Durr said, including himself, the police department has four patrol officers. He said operating with three patrol officers would run into “morale issues” and burnout.

The department, according to Durr, runs with two officers on each shift, and inevitably vacations, sick time and personal time off require the other two officers to cover shifts. He said cutting the force from four to three officers would make it hard to retain them. Ultimately, he said, the city would lose them to more lucrative, better-paying jobs.

Rookstool said that those suggesting the city cut a patrol officer position should consider that the police officers are not off at 5 p.m. She said they are required to take late-night calls and that it would be “irresponsible.” Rookstool told the audience that the city would risk putting the police force at risk of getting hurt by expecting them to work 16-hour shifts.

Close the city’s greenhouse

The concerned citizens argued that the city should close the “failed greenhouse” and cut its losses. They write that, while the city would need to continue paying off the greenhouse construction loan, the city could still keep its police force.

The group said shuttering the greenhouse also does not fit the city’s narrative.

John Day City Manager Nick Green told the Eagle that, if the city shuttered the greenhouse, it would not change the police department’s financial situation as the funding for the greenhouse came from the sewer fund and it is not supported by the city’s general fund, which funds police.

However, Green said in a Monday email that in the last fiscal year from July 2020 to June 2021 the greenhouse revenues were an “anemic” $33,000 and the greenhouse is running a $122,000 deficit.

Green said there may come a time when John Day may need to “divest” the asset. However, he said, to eliminate the asset due to revenue shortfalls resulting from the pandemic is “premature.”

Green said the city’s decision to shift the greenhouse to a cooperative formation should shore up the financial hiccups by allowing members who get their produce from the greenhouse to own and operate the venture instead of the government.

He said going to a co-op model would eliminate personnel costs and slash fringe benefits for its lone employee, including PERS retirement accounts.

Under the co-op model, he said, the city would structure other staffing and how they want to operate it. This would including having people seed, generate and harvest in exchange for produce, which, according to Green, would not impact the city’s payroll.

He said the city is “triaging” and coming up on the end of its second year of operation. Green said the greenhouse’s first two years have been “weird years.” He said 18 months saw restaurants shuttered at certain points and unable to purchase produce.

COVID-19 relief funds

Another criticism is that the city earmarked pandemic relief funding for the greenhouse, a claim that Green rejected last week. He said $5,000 of its $180,000 allotment from the federal government went to the greenhouse. He said the city had not made any further decisions about how it would spend the money.

The city’s approved budget does list $180,000 in estimated COVID-19 funding revenues for the Community Development Fund’s Agribusiness Department — i.e., the greenhouse — for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. However, the amount appears to have been transferred to the Community Development Fund’s Administration Department, where it shows up as net working capital in the 2021-2022 budget.

The people opposed to the levy argued the $180,000 could have funded the department for two years.

Green said the Budget Committee in the spring decided to place the relief dollars into the Community Development Fund. At the time, he said, interim federal guidelines directed that the money was to go to community development projects for water, sewer, infrastructure and broadband. He said the funds could only be used if local governments could show budget holes directly resulting from the pandemic.

However, in late June, Green said he heard President Joe Biden’s administration announced that funding could be used for public safety. Still, as of last week, he said he had not been able to verify that. Nonetheless, Green said that he would recommend the council appropriate a portion of the grant money to fill holes in the budget.

“I value the department, and I think they (city council) do too,” he said.

Green said it is essential to remember that the city would only have the grant funding for two years, and then it is gone.

“We haven’t addressed the fundamentals yet,” Green said. “We need more housing, we need more employment and we need growth to fund basic services, whether it’s police or fire, or general operations of the government.”