Oroville holds public hearings on transportation, flood prevention

OROVILLE – The Oroville City Council held public hearings amending the Six-year Transportation Plan as well as adopting the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance at their Tuesday, Sept. 16 meeting.

The Six Year Transportation plan was amended to reflect an Okanogan County Transportation fund grant of $15,000 to cover a shortfall in the funding for the city’s Central and Cherry Street project, completed over the summer. It also reflects an additional $3000 in funding from the city. Councilman Tony Koepke made a motion to approve the ammendment and it was seconded by Councilman Jon Neal and passed unanimously.

The second public hearing was to discuss the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance and to listen to the staff report given by Chris Branch, director of Oroville Community Development.

“It is mostly administrative changes to meet or exceed state standards. The federal government makes changes and then the state makes changes so then we must adopt changes of our own. Most of them are minor,” said Branch, adding the changes refer to State Statute 86.16.120.

The state updates their model occasionally, mostly for clarification, according to Branch.

“Do you see this affecting anyone in town?” asked Councilman Walt Hart.

Branch said he didn’t think they would.

“No, the Critical Areas Ordinance you passed has more affect. This one is pretty standard. It is nationally required to make federal flood insurance more affordable,” said Branch.

Councilwoman Neysa Roley made the motion to approve the ordinance and Hart made the second and it passed unanimously.

In a similar vain the council approved a resolution supporting and adopting the Okanogan County Multi-hazard Mitigation Plan.

Project Reports

Once again the council heard updates the various projects completed over the summer, as well as the recent improvements to the runway at Oroville’s Dorothy Scott International Airport.

The North End Reservoir project has not quite closed, according to Rod Noel, superintendent of Public Works. He said the contractor has provided warranty documents in regards to the new reservoir tank, but there are still a few loose ends to tie up regarding the pay estimate. These have been forwarded to Mick Howe, the city’s attorney for review.

City Clerk Kathy Jones said there questions remaining about Liquid Damages of $24,500 and some questions about engineering cost increases due to the delays in completion of the reservoir by the contractor.

Noel said there was one remaining punchlist item regarding the Central and Cherry Street Project in regards to the “speed bump” on Main Street. The city is still waiting for the paving company to return and fix the unwanted bump in the road.

“They asked when they were going to get paid and I said when we get our Main Street fixed. I recommend they complete it first,” said Noel to the council, adding that there is no money set aside in case of disputes over the project.

Councilman Ed Naillon, with a second from Koepke, made a motion to process the company’s check as when Main Street if fixed. The rest of the council agreed.

The best news on projects seemed to concern the crack repair and seal coating of the runway at the airport.

“The project is complete except they have 30 days to finish painting with reflective bead paint,” said Noel, adding that the engineer on the project was a “great person to work with.”

He also said the contractor did a great job and was very professional.

“It looks really good, they also had a required friction test done and the tester had to come out of Montana. The project just went click, click, click and got done. A greet project,” said Noel.

Steve Johnston, Airport Services Manager, said that he was hearing a lot of positive comments on the runway and especially the new windsock installed at the airport.

Budget Amendment

Kathy Jones discussed a budget amendment that would set certain salary and wage revisions.

“It creates stepped increases for positions at city hall, something we’ve never had before,” said Jones.

She explained that other city departments are payed according to a stepped system. The budget amendment was approved and goes into affect retroactively starting Sept. 1.