JOHN DAY — John Day’s place within the R3 agreement is in limbo following the April 25 city council session.

At its April 11 meeting, the John Day City Council voted 6-0 to join R3 (more formally known as the Regional Rural Revitalization Strategies Consortium), a partnership with Burns and Lakeview to address housing shortages and other common issues, with some changes to the language of the proposed intergovernmental agreement. The changes to the IGA related to the timeline a member city could depart the agreement and the desire for unanimous R3 board consent for any major decisions made by the group.

The council was expected to adopt an R3 ordinance at its April 25 meeting but canceled a vote on the matter after being told that Burns and Lakeview had filed paperwork for an agreement creating the consortium that left John Day out of the deal.

John Day Mayor Heather Rookstool said the paperwork excluding John Day from the R3 agreement was filed without the city’s knowledge.

Ben Morris, a spokesman for the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office, said that paperwork for intergovernmental agreements between cities is typically held by the cities involved rather than being filed with the state.

The Burns City Council voted to join R3 on March 22. The minutes from that meeting include a comment to the effect that John Day had decided not to join the consortium. However, the John Day City Council has never voted to pull out of the deal.

Judy Erwin, a Burns city councilor who also sits on the R3 board, said the language used in the minutes didn’t properly explain the situation. Erwin said John Day simply wasn’t ready to move forward with the agreement when the other two cities were, so it was omitted from an intergovernmental agreement between Lakeview and Burns, adding that John Day could join R3 in the future.

The R3 board will hold its first meeting on Thursday, May 4, in Burns, and accepting John Day into the IGA is on the agenda.

A delegation of John Day officials — Mayor Rookstool, City Council President Dave Holland and the city’s legal counsel — will attend that meeting in person, with interim City Manager Rick Allen attending virtually.

The John Day contingent will ask the R3 board to adopt the city’s proposed IGA changes and admit John Day to the consortium.

In other action at the April 25 meeting, the John Day City Council:

• Swore in Chris Labhart as a council member. Labhart was appointed by a 5-1 vote during the April 11 meeting to fill the seat formerly held by Rookstool, who was elected mayor in November.

• Unanimously passed a resolution approving Grant County Digital’s application for additional broadband and CyberMill project funds. Grant County Digital will enter into a lease agreement with the city of John Day for the property at 241-243 W. Main St., which the nonprofit intends to use as the site of the John Day CyberMill.

The resolution also authorizes the city and Grant County Digital to jointly apply for a set of four grants to help with the creation of the new CyberMill: the Brownfields Grant (no less than $60,000), the Oregon Broadband Office’s Broadband Technical Assistance Program Grant (no less than $100,000), the USDA Broadband Technical Assistance Program Grant (up to $250,000) and the Ford Family Foundation’s Large Good Neighbor Grant (up to $250,000).

The city has already been awarded an Economic Development Administration CARES Act grant of $1,804,475 which covers the entire cost of installing broadband with a small portion going toward constructing the CyberMill.

A previous version of this story misstated what the funds received from the CARES Act Grant were going to be used for. The error has been corrected. The Eagle apologizes for the error.