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City gets influx of cash, returns budget to committee |
By Laurent
Bonczijk,
Newberg Graphic reporter
E-mail Laurent at lbonczijk@eaglenewspapers.com
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Monday night the Newberg
City Council voted unanimously to send the city budget back to the
budget committee for a further review.
The motion came after City Manager James Bennett informed them that
the city has received $127,850 in delinquent property taxes since
the budget committee last convened. Bennett characterized some of
the payments as amounting to years of delinquent payments.
The council met for more than four hours and spent the bulk of its
time discussing possible cuts to the general fund and hearing
testimony from the Chamber of Commerce and its supporters.
As the budget stands, the Chamber could lose $18,000 in support
from the city. The money represents roughly 60 percent of the
operating costs of the Chamber-operated visitor’s center.
Sheryl Kelsh, the Chamber’s executive director, argued that the
Chamber had lobbied in favor of the business license fee charged by
the city because of a tacit understanding that some of it would go
to fund the visitor’s center.
She argued that it was common practice “in tourism to tie room tax
to (the) visitor center,” adding that the city was getting a great
return on its investment, pointing to the 32 percent increase in
transient room tax receipts.
Councilor Roger Currier asked Kelsh if it was such a good return on
investment, would the business community be willing to fully fund
the visitor center. Kelsh said that in the eyes of many business
owners, they were already directly funding the Chamber through
membership, and indirectly through business licensing fees. She
cited increased traffic to the Chamber’s Web site as a sign that
their marketing was bringing tourism dollars to the valley.
Councilor Mike Boyes took issue with the increase in training and
travel costs for some city agencies, which he said estimated at
nearly $193,000. Bennett said that the training was required because
“most of city work involves specialized training” and that the
departments were trying to catch up on training that had not been
done in past years.
The budget committee will meet at 7 p.m. June 26 to reconsider the
cuts in light of the new tax proceeds collected. The city council
will then reconvene at 7 p.m. June 28 to vote on the budget again.
In other business, the council:
— Unanimously approved an ordinance to allow $8.91 million in
financing for the water reuse project.
— Agreed to purchase two half-million-gallon filtration devices for
the water reuse facility from the Pall Corp. for $764,000, plus
$11,000 for a one-year extended warranty and $28,000 a month for up
to two months of monitoring the devices.
— Voted 7-0 in favor of a contract with Emery and Sons for $6.57
million to build the water reuse facility.
— Adopted an ADA-compliant pedestrian and bicycle improvement plan
that may help the city secure future grant money to upgrade
sidewalks and other facilities.
— The councilors voted 5-2 (Currier and Bob Larson were the nay
votes) to reconsider providing city water to the McClure
development. |
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From
June 20, 2007, Newberg Graphic
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