City and county looking to state and federal partners

Cities and counties routinely seek help from their state and federal big brothers with larger projects for the constituencies they serve. And with new legislative and congressional sessions getting underway, ‘tis the season when they traditionally unfurl their new wish lists.

Often, requests range into esoteric domains whose merit is hard to adequately establish at street level, where demonstrated public support can make a big difference. But this year’s city and county petitions, released last week, are refreshingly direct and concrete.

The city is angling for:

* $1 million from the feds and up to $1 million from the state to help pave the final four blocks of Alpine, from Mac Market on north. It’s a $5.5 million project, and the city plans to dig into its urban renewal fund to cover the rest.

The city has already invested heavily in revitalizing what was once a badly decayed industrial district, helping attract new restaurants, motels, wineries, coffee shops and the like. This is a logical extension that will also help support a new mixed residential and commercial development being eyed for the former RB Rubber industrial site.

* $1.7 million in federal support for a pedestrian rail crossing on Booth Bend Road, critical link in a safe walking route to Sue Buel Elementary School. The crossing is an integral element in a $2.9 million sidewalk improvement project requiring a $250,000 local contribution.

The McMinnville School District is currently incurring considerable expense in having to bus close-in students who could walk instead with a safe rail crossing and sidewalk network.

The Booth Bend roadway badly needs upgrading between Highway 99W and Davis Street. And that need figures to grow exponentially as EMPWR nears completion of a $20 million, 85,000-square-foot expansion, which expects at full buildout to support a workforce of 500 spread among three shifts.

However, that project didn’t make this year’s cut.

* Just over $1 million in state aid to help fund a collaborative effort with Habitat for Humanity for construction of six three-bedroom townhomes in the agency’s Aspire neighborhood. The city is desperately short of affordable entry-level housing, and this represents one of the best immediate opportunities.

* $1 million from the state to reduce a massive backlog in repair aid for roofs, siding, windows and such, vital to keeping low- and middle-income family housing livable. There are currently 266 Yamhill County homes on the waiting list, 190 of them lying within McMinnville city limits.

As Mayor Kim Morris observed, “We want people to stay in their homes, too. You can’t just build housing.”

* $1 million in state money for frontage improvements on the north side of Three Mile Lane between Cumulus Avenue and Norton Lane.

The work is critical to development of a proposed job-generating 160-acre innovation campus the city is hoping to develop there. Eventually, south side frontage will need to be addressed as well.

* $1.25 million from the state for a traffic signal at the intersection of Michelbook Lane and Baker Creek Road and $1.2 million for neighborhood sidewalk improvements. Both are high priorities for affected residents, and would pay dividends for the larger community as well.

Over at the county, promise of $833,000 has already been secured from the state Department of Transportation for a new community shuttle service.

It’s aimed at addressing the shopping and medical needs of adults facing aging and disability limitations. More than half a million of the money has been earmarked for a trio of new vehicles.

Transit Manager Cynthia Thompson said the shuttle would ferry people to the store, bank or pharmacy. She termed that “a high priority based upon data from the Yamhill County Department of Human Services and from current riders.”

In addition, the county plans to seek:

* $876,500 in state money to overhaul a badly deteriorating emergency radio system — one that is increasingly prone to outages and breakdowns at critical junctures. No local match is required for that project.

* 95% state funding of a sheriff’s deputy dedicated to conducting truck safety inspection and enforcement. The county is currently assisting on a basis that isn’t reimbursable, stretching precious resources.

Elon Musk currently has cadres from his newly created Department of Governmental Efficiency taking a wrecking ball to entire programs and agencies at the federal level, and that will also have a direct pass-through impact on state funding. However, it pays to remember how much good money from above can do when it trickles down to relatively out-of-the-way places like Yamhill County.

Locals are in no position to tackle some of their most critical community needs without either raising taxes through the roof or enlisting support from state and federal agencies up the line — assuming, of course, that those agencies survive the purging so much in vogue of late.