March 16, 2010

Wind, airport top city talk

By Rodger Nichols
The Chronicle

    Is there a wind turbine in your personal future? There might be, thanks to The Dalles City Council. At their Monday night meeting, councilors deleted language from a large package of changes to the city’s land use development ordinances (LUDOs) that would have prohibited wind turbines from the city’s residential, central business and historic districts — essentially the whole town.
    Councilor Jim Wilcox pointed out that a blanket prohibition not only would ban the current 390-foot tall turbines that feature so prominently in Sherman, Gilliam and Klickitat counties, but it would prevent the use of smaller, more efficient and less obtrusive designs now in development.
    “You’re saying no without even knowing what the technology is,” he said, and the rest of the councilors agreed to remove those provisions from the annual LUDO update.
    Council members also approved a request by the airport commission to lease a piece of property on the airport site to Juniper Investments, Inc, which will construct an ambulance facility at the airport. The deal will be structured similarly to one that recently created the first new hangar at the airport in decades. After 30 years, the structure will be come the property of Klickitat County and the City of The Dalles, which jointly own the airport.
    “This is a perfect fit with LifeFlight at the airport,” said airport manager Chuck Covert.
Councilors also authorized the city manager to sign grant documents. The city has an opportunity to apply for a $3 million Connect Oregon III grant that, together with a proposed $2 million FAA grant would provide funds for strengthening runways at the airport.
    “We have been rated for a certain weight for planes landing since 1945, but it’s never been tested,” said Councilor Jim Wilcox, who sits on the Airport Commission. “We did testing on core samples and found that it would support less than one-third what we were rated at.”
    Wilcox said that result helped push the airport’s application from number 15 to number three on the priority list for the Connect Oregon III grant.
    “We’re feeling pretty good about the progress here,” said City Manager Nolan Young.
    Councilors also debated proposed amendments to the Chenowith Interchange Area Master Plan (IAMP) hammered out in negotiations with the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). The plan ultimately must be approved by the city, Wasco County and ODOT.
    Councilor Bill Dick expressed concern over protecting the access from West Sixth to the card-fueling station operated by Hattenhauer Distributing in the plan.
    “What my thought was in that language was to have [ODOT] admit that it’s important to us, the locals. I wanted them to say, on the record, that they would, in fact, follow the law, that this is a granted access deviation, and they will do no harm. Apparently, they are not willing to do that.”
    Ultimately, councilors approved the amendments with the addition of four words, “notably including access 13,” which is the access for the fueling station.
    Following the council meeting, members of the council reconvened as an urban renewal agency and approved a grant for Wonderworks Children’s Museum of $35,287 for the first phase of the project. Representatives of Wonderworks told the council that, with the latest Urban Renewal grant, they would have raised approximately 30 percent of the $650,000 project total. That’s a significant figure because it shows enough local support to interest the large private grant agencies.
    Following an executive session to discuss real property transactions, the agency returned to open session and voted to authorize staff “to spend up to $550,000 for property(ies) in the block between Washington and Court, Second and Third streets.”