Oregon City commissioners pass citywide fee to fund new police station

Community Safety Advancement Fee

Oregon City commissioners are launching a Community Safety Advancement Fund to help pay for a news police station by charging residents a Community Safety Advancement Fee . (Oregon City Police Department)

Oregon City residents will soon start paying a monthly fee to fund a new police station.

City commissioners Wednesday night, May 20, unanimously approved an ordinance for a citywide fee to build a new police station on the old Mt. Pleasant Elementary School property.

The 15-year Community Safety Advancement Fee will cost each responsible city resident $6.50 per month, totaling $78 annually. The fee will show up on monthly water bills starting in February.

City resident Dave Anderson isn't happy about the fee, partially because it's called a fee. He would prefer a bond, he said.

"I hate fees," Anderson said. "I moved out to Oregon City three years ago and got out of the socialist republic of Portland, where the fees are 100 percent."

But overall, open houses and other community outreach indicated that Oregon City residents would support the fund, Oregon City Police Chief Jim Band has said.

He and city commissioners want to spread the cost of construction as broadly as possible, to include non-taxpaying property such as county offices located in the city, instead of seeking traditional bonds that could overburden property owners. The Oregon City Business Alliance wrote commissioners a letter supporting the fee.

The Community Safety Advancement Fee will directly charge the responsible person for each residential dwelling unit, for each business or for each non-residential unit or tenant space existing on a developed property.

The fund filled by the fee will support "police expenditures related to the acquisition, improvement, replacement and construction of public safety facilities of the city."

Oregon City has sought to build a new police station for years. Its current building, built in the late 1960s, is highly crowded and doesn't meet federal seismic standards for emergency facilities.

The city earlier this year purchased an 8.3-acre site that is home to the old Mt. Pleasant Elementary School, which has been closed since 2012.   A subsequent architectural analysis determined that the school building could not be safely or efficiently converted into a police station, The Oregonian/OregonLive previously reported.

When Band joined the department in 1999, he was told the current facility was temporary, he recently told commissioners.

One reason commissioner Rocky Smith ran for city commission was the police department, especially its need of staff in 2008, he said last week.

It's not about shiny new offices, Band said. Secure parking and other features affect officers'  ability to perform their duties.

The city's vision of a new police station has it housing the Oregon City Municipal Court and a large public meeting area.

"The plan would be to collect the fee for a couple of years and put it into a building fund," according to city documents. "Once the loan is paid off, the fee will go away."

Medford and Gresham are among Oregon cities that have already used a similar system.

City commissioners had also considered a 20-year option that would cost each payer $5.50 per month ($66 annually), but opted for the shorter schedule, which is projected to save taxpayers about $2.75 million in interest.

Commissioners Brian Shaw and Rocky Smith, along with mayor Dan Holladay, voted in favor of the fee Wednesday. Commissioner Carol Pauli was absent.

-- Hannah Leone

503-294-4001; @HannahMLeone

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