Mayor Severson called the regular meeting to order at 7:00 pm and declared a quorum present.  Present were Councilors Hardin, Misner, Davis, Harn, Springer, Myers, Calame and Harkenrider.  Staff members in attendance were City Manager Brookshier, City Attorney Luisi, Ray Jones, Clint Spencer, Judge Creasing, Ron Sivey, Jason Edmiston, Bill Schmittle, Chris McMahon, Darryl Johnson, Will Jons, Karen Primmer, Linda Cain and Donna Moeller.  News media present were Neill Woelk of the Hermiston Herald, Anna Willard of the East Oregonian and Eric Olson of KOHU-KQFM.  The pledge of allegiance was given.

Minutes

Councilor Hardin moved and Councilor Davis seconded that minutes of the October 10 regular meeting be approved for filing.  Motion carried unanimously.

Hearing/Closeout Community Development Block Grant Business Revolving Loan

At 7:02 pm Mayor Severson opened the hearing as part of the process to closeout the Community Development Block Grant - Business Revolving Loan.  The purpose of the hearing is to obtain citizens views about the project and to take comments about the local government’s performance.  Assistant City Manager Jones introduced Cheri Davis and Ben Currin, representatives from Horizon Projects, Inc., the contract managers for the grant and loan process, who were present to answer any questions.  Mr. Currin reported two new businesses, Affordable Family Eye Wear and Fuddruckers, received funds from this grant and 25 new jobs were created.  There were no comments from the council, and no one in the audience wished to comment.  The hearing was closed at 7:05 pm.

Unscheduled Communications From the Audience

Kim Puzey, Manager of the Port of Umatilla, praised City Manager Brookshier and the City of Hermiston for their insight into the development of the Regional Water System and for Mr. Brookshier’s co-operative working relationship with the Port.  This water system is a very important asset to the Port of Umatilla.  Mr. Puzey stated he values the institutional memory that Mr. Brookshier has from the development of this system and that he is a trusted advisor to the Port when working on the legal water issues connected to this complex system.  He asked the council to please consider Mr. Brookshier’s value later as they discuss his contract extension.

Joe Thompson, 582 E. Main Street, asked the councilors to consider freezing the water/sewer rates.  He feels that a utility increase, coupled with the current bad economy, would be devastating to businesses in Hermiston.

Nancy Padilla, 135 N.E. 8th Place, protested the extension of the City Manager’s contract.  She believes that because of the current situation at the Hermiston Police Department and the police chief that Mr. Brookshier has lost all credibility, even though in some areas he is doing a good job.  She also takes issues with the city council, naming Councilor Myers specifically, questioning whether or not the council actually knew what was going on at the Hermiston Police Department.  Ms. Padilla admitted she gets most of her information from the newspapers and she stated “hopefully it’s all correct” questions that no one knew anything about the situation at the HPD over the last ten years.  Ms. Padilla thinks the entire city council, as well as, the city manager should step down or be recalled.

Minutes & Report

Councilor Davis moved and Councilor Myers seconded that the September manager’s monthly report, minutes of the September 28 library board meeting, minutes of the October 6 special meeting and minutes of the October 17 public safety committee meeting be approved for filing.  Motion carried unanimously.

Confirm Appointments/Airport Advisory Committee and Parks and Recreation Committee

Councilor Harkenrider moved and Councilor Myers seconded to confirm the following appointments for the standing committee vacancies for three year terms ending October 31, 2014:

• Airport Advisory Committee, Position #1 - Bob Stanley
• Airport Advisory Committee, Position #2 - Ronald Osgood
• Parks and Recreation Committee, Position #1 - Sheila Cross

Motion carried unanimously.

Ord. No. 2182 - Amend Subsection (F) of Section 10.99 General Penalty of the Code of Hermiston

Ordinance No. 2182 - Amend subsection (F) of Section 10.99 General Penalty of the Code of Hermiston, effective on the 30th day after enactment.  Mayor Severson requested that the first reading be by title only.  Hearing no opposition, City Attorney Luisi read the ordinance by title only.  Mayor Severson requested that the ordinance be put on for final adoption at this meeting and that the second reading be by title only.  After City Attorney Luisi read the ordinance by title only for the second reading, Councilor Hardin moved and Councilor Myers seconded that Ordinance No. 2182 be adopted.  8 votes for; none against.  Motion carried unanimously.

Res. No. 1899 - Easements Pertaining to Property of LGW Ranch, Inc. - Right of Way Access

Resolution No. 1899 - Resolution pertaining to a permanent easement and temporary construction easement together with such access and other related rights in the real property of LGW Ranch, Inc. As needed to accomplish a public purpose - was read and discussed.  Councilor Harkenrider moved and Councilor Harn seconded that the resolution be approved and laid upon the record.  Motion carried unanimously.

Proposed Purchase of Land - Southeast Slope of the Butte

City Manager Brookshier reported that while the City owns most of the Butte, there is one and a half acres on the Southeast slope of the Butte that has been privately owned for a very long time.  The owner is Norm Schroth, a long-time Hermiston resident and realtor.  Mr. Schroth’s parcel is zoned R-1 Single Family Residential.  While road access, utilities and building site costs would be high, theoretically two or three houses could be built on the property.  Mr. Brookshier stated he feels private houses visible for all to see on Hermiston’s singular landmark would be a bad idea and thinks the Butte is a view-shed feature that should be preserved for the enjoyment of the public.  Mr. Schroth approached the City proposing to sell the property for around half its Real Market Value, which according to the County Assessor’s RMV for the parcel for the 2010-11 year was $88,260; therefore making the purchase price to the City at $44,130.  Barak & Associates appraised the property at $50,000.

Councilor Harkenrider stated he agrees the City should purchase the property and protect the landmark.  Councilor Hardin would like to get more citizen input before a final decision is made to purchase the property.  Councilor Myers asked if this item could be deferred until additional citizen input could be obtained.  Councilor Misner also would like to table this issue for additional community input.  City Manager Brookshier said this item can be deferred until the November 14 regular meeting.  Councilor Harn moved and Councilor Misner seconded to defer the proposed purchase of 1.5 acres of land on the Southeast slope of the Butte until the next council meeting.  Motion carried unanimously.

Mr. Brookshier asked the council if he could contact Mr. Schroth and make him aware that the purchase is being considered and that a decision would be made at the November meeting.  The council directed Mr. Brookshier to make contact with Mr. Schroth.

Announcement/Budget Committee & Recreation Projects Fund Advisory Committee

Mayor Severson announced standing committee vacancies on the Budget Committee - Positions #4, #5 and #6, and on the Recreation Projects Fund Advisory Committee - Positions #3 and #4 for three year terms beginning January 1, 2012 and ending December 31, 2014.  Deadline for submitting applications is September 20, 2011.

Presentation/John Kirwan and “Enviroquip” - Membrane Bio-Reactor (MBR) Discussion

Mr. Brookshier explained that Mr. Kirwan had asked to sponsor a presentation from Mr. Jim Gleason, a representative for the Treatment Equipment Company that sells “Enviroquip” MBR equipment at this meeting.  However, since the MBR equipment part of the plant improvements were bid in the spring of 2009 and Enviroquip was one of the three bidders on this project in 2009, Mr. Brookshier also invited the City’s consulting engineers Kennedy/Jenks and a representative from the successful bidder, Siemens’, to be present to answer questions.

John Kirwan stated for the past several weeks he had been doing research regarding alternatives for up-grading the Wastewater Treatment Plant.  Most recently he has been in contact with Jim Gleason and Dean Wood from Treatment Equipment Company, who had agreed to come and make a presentation to the city council at this meeting.  However, due to some of the current political situations going on in Hermiston they didn’t want to be involved in a political debate, Kirwan stated he understood because they have a company to run and they don’t want to break ties within that organization.  After visiting with and obtaining information from Dean Wood, Mr. Kirwan presented facts from several other cities along the west coast that have used Enviroquip - Ovivo’s MBR technology, but his main focus was Winlock, Washington and Delphos, Ohio.  Kirwan stated the City has done a good job in researching and selecting membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology, since it has become the most prominent advanced wastewater treatment solution in the industry.  Kirwan continued to say the Ovivo MBR is the simplest MBR system to construct and maintain because it was developed solely for wastewater applications.  Kirwan stated in these economic times, a critical challenge is identifying and selecting the most cost effective methods of wastewater treatment.  Recent project cost data from 62 Ovivo MBR’s and 49 competitor MBR’s suggests that no matter what size the treatment plant, the Ovivo MBR is significantly less expensive than competing MBR technologies.  Mr. Kirwan gave background information on the Winlock, WA plant, system designs, construction and funding, operations and results.  Mr. Kirwan included the actual Enviroquip bid packet from the 2009 bid process and discussed several points from the bid proposal.  Mr. Kirwan questioned whether or not contracts had been signed.  Kirwan said his point tonight is, has the City of Hermiston and the City Council truly explored every option, has the City done it’s due diligence for the citizens of Hermiston.  He stated, before you is potential savings of 5 to 7 million dollars and what that means to the 5,000 water/sewer rate payers.  Mr. Kirwan apologized that Dean Wood and Jim Gleason were unable to attend the meeting tonight, Kirwan also asked that with everything that has happened in the last few weeks as the council goes into a closed session to talk about things, if you feel that everything hasn’t been done for the citizens of Hermiston, come out of that closed session, there is no rush to do anything, and do the right thing for all of us.

Mr. Brookshier stated there are some real legal issues here, but before that is discussed, he asked Al Shewey, Kennedy/Jenks consultant to give some background about their decision to recommend the process being used.  Mr. Shewey introduced Brad Bogus, a senior engineer and designer on this project and Bill Reilly, a representative of the Reilly Equipment Company and representative of the low proposer for the membrane system that was bid in 2009, that Enviroquip was also a bidder on.  Shewey said, in the public arena, when public money is used, we are not allowed to accept on a preferential basis any one equipment supplier.  A specification format is put out, the City asks for proposals from equipment suppliers and puts in the parameters they have to meet and then receives a proposal from them, that’s what was done in this case.  Al stated he was not here to say that Enviroquip is not a good membrane system, because he believes they are; however, they aren’t the only reputable, very high end manufacturer of membranes.  Mr. Shewey simply stated, you cannot compare the system at Winlock, WA or Newburg, OR with the system in Hermiston for a couple reasons.  The siting scenarios are much different.  The existing treatment facility that has operated in Hermiston for 31 years, started out to be a 20 year facility, parts of that treatment facility will be incorporated into the new treatment facility Shewey stated.  When reviewing cost estimates for treatment facilities, it’s not apples to apples, it’s more like apples to watermelons - there is a huge difference, making it very difficult to compare.  For instance, Winlock, WA has 1,300 citizens and Hermiston’s population is nearing 17,000, the flows into Winlock are very different than the flows going into Hermiston.  Mr. Shewey also indicated that the Newberg Plant was sited near the Willamette River, which is very large in comparison to the Umatilla River, providing discharge options that are not available here.

Brad Bogus, Tetra Tech Engineering, reviewed the 2009 membrane bid evaluations that included a proposal from Enviroquip.  The reason the membranes were bid in 2009 is because each supplier has a different configuration including different ancillary equipment that fits in with their membrane package.  Bogus said, in order to design the entire project the engineers had to select a membrane supplier early in the process so we had a road map for what the plant would look like.  The City of Hermiston received three proposals in response to its Request for Qualifications and Request for Proposals for membrane bioreactor (MBR) equipment.  Submitting manufacturers were Enviroquip, General Electric (GE) and Siemens.  All three met the pre-qualification standards and were deemed qualified to propose on the City’s project.  Kennedy/Jenks Consultants reviewed the proposals for completeness and determined the evaluated proposal costs based on information provided in the manufacturer’s proposals.  Siemens was determined to be the manufacturer with the lowest responsible proposal as the supplier of MBR equipment for construction of the City’s Recycled Water Plant.

Councilor Harn left the meeting at 8:03 pm.

Councilor Harkenrider asked about the longevity of this new plant?  Brad responded that the equipment was designed for 20 years, the piping and concrete structures for 50 years, and the discharge alternative for 50 years.  Membranes will need to be replaced after 10 years; the rest of the equipment is designed for 20 years.

City Attorney Luisi asked if the City, just hypothetically, would go with another membrane manufacturer would that delay the construction of the plant.  Mr. Bogus said yes it would.  Each of the three different suppliers have different piping configurations, different equipment that support their membranes and all those pieces of equipment have electrical connections, instrumentation  connections and piping connections.  Those have all been designed up to now around the Siemens system.  So at this point, if the City were to go with another membrane manufacture, out of 350 sheets of drawings about 40 percent of them would need to be redesigned, creating additional costs and time delays; plus, the project would have to go through another public bid process which could take 3 - 6 months.  Mr. Luisi asked if there is an outstanding contract with Siemens.  Mr. Bogus said there is an outstanding contract with Siemens for Phase I, they have executed that part.  They are now waiting, what happens is the City holds the contract and after it’s bid they assign that contract to the contractor and they give the notice to proceed for the construction of the equipment.

Mr. Kirwan asked if there was a contract for the equipment.  Mr. Bogus stated he was an engineer, not an attorney and could not comment.

Mr. Bogus said these are complex systems and every vendor occasionally runs into problems.  He stated he knows for a fact that the City of Winlock, WA is thinking about bringing suit against Enviroquip-Ovivo because of control and compliance issues at their treatment plant.

Bill Reilly, William H. Reilly Company, the selected supplier of the membrane bioreactor (MBR) equipment for the wastewater treatment facility gave a short Power Point presentation to further explain their product.  He stated, “I do agree that the Siemens people feel they have a contract with the City of Hermiston to provide not only the membrane development engineering services but the equipment as well.”  MBR is a great technology in moving forward, it’s certainly state-of-the-art and gives the City the technology in the future to meet future discharge requirements.  One key difference in the technology is that the hollow fiber technology from both Siemens and GE are ultra filtration systems, which means that the membranes remove a larger percentage of the pollutants in the wastewater, provide a higher quality effluent and provide an easier to disinfect effluent as opposed to flat plate membranes which are micro filtration with pore sizes (openings) ten times the size of hollow fiber.  Reilly stated, you are getting advanced technology with the hollow fiber that you wouldn’t get with the flat plate technology.  Siemens is one of the largest industrial companies in the world, in the Untied States they do over a billion dollars a year in the water market, they own companies that have been in this market for over 100 years.  Once Reilly Equipment/Siemens have a contract with you, we are around to support that contract.  Siemens did go through the membrane bid process and we did present what was evaluated by your engineers as the lowest cost option for the City of Hermiston over a 20 year period that took into account not just the equipment cost but also the cost to build the facility and to operate and maintain the facility over 20 years.

Mr. Brookshier asked if the staffing levels would be less with the Enviroquip system.

Bill Reilly stated he doesn’t feel like it would cost any less to staff in terms of the equipment, these are very automated systems.

Mr. Brookshier stated the ultimate issue being raised here is whether or not over the life cycle  of this plant up-grade, in a re-bid situation do you believe there would be opportunities for substantial cost savings as long as you are comparing the likes of the Enviroquip system versus what the City has already bid.

Al Shewey stated he does not believe there would be cost savings, what I do believe is there would be cost increases.  Those cost increases would be reflective of the fact that we have moved forward on the design using the Siemens membranes.  They are different in design than the flat plate membranes and so we would throw out a bunch of sheets of designs that the City has paid for with hard earned money and redo them, but we would have the larger problem of having to go back through the bid process with a similar set of documents expecting a different result.  That would be very difficult and we would be very uncomfortable with suggesting that option.  It would cost more money!

City Attorney Luisi asked Mr. Shewey if he thought there would be a different result if the project was rebid.  Mr. Shewey responded he felt there would be some issues to deal with in the legal arena prior to every getting there.  There were no errors made in the bid process and there was no protest by either the second or third low equipment suppliers.  So to throw the bids out now, with prejudice towards a differing membrane would be very difficult for us to recommend to you.  You would lose a lot of time and time is a commodity the City’s doesn’t have an endless supply of here.  We are in a good construction market, the City wants to move forward with this project and I think that’s in the rate payers of Hermiston’s best interest to do that as well.

Mayor Severson stated he hasn’t heard anything here tonight that makes him think the City should change anything concerning this project.

City Manager Brookshier stated that at a future meeting he would like to go back through the entire cost issue thoroughly.  He said it has been two or three years since we went through everything, both with what we looked at in terms of alternatives, which led us to where we are now, and what we are looking at for water/sewer rates.

Announcement/Officer Mc Mahon to Full Duty

Acting Chief Edmiston introduced officer Chris Mc Mahon, stating Chris just completed 1,000 hours of training and has been cleared to solo duty for the Hermiston Police Department.  Chris is a local man, went to school here and wants to raise his family in Hermiston.

Recess

Mayor Severson recessed the regular meeting at 8:35 pm and announced that an executive session would convene immediately in accord with ORS 192.660(1)(I) relative to City Manager performance and development appraisal.

Reconvened

Mayor Severson reconvened the regular meeting of the Hermiston City Council at 9:40 pm.

Res. No. 1900 - Extend City Manager Employment Agreement/Supersedes Res. No. 1881

Resolution No. 1900 - Extend the November 9, 1998 City Manager Employment Agreement (supersedes Resolution No. 1881 as to term of agreement only) - was read and discussed.  Councilor Misner moved and Councilor Harkenrider seconded that the resolution be approved and laid upon the record.  Motion carried unanimously.

Open Letter To The People of Hermiston

Mayor Severson asked to read a letter into the record:

To The People of the Greater Hermiston Area:

It seems there is a small group of people who seem to promote only their own agenda instead of what is best for the entire community.  They seem to be trying to tear Hermiston apart.  There has been a lot of negativism from these people as well as from the media.  Perhaps some of the positive happenings in Hermiston should be mentioned.

Hermiston has become the largest city in Eastern Oregon.  This has not happened overnight.  It took a lot of people working together to accomplish what we have done.  The people of the west end of Umatilla County pay the largest share of the taxes to the County.  The City of Hermiston has a population of 16,745.  Despite the overall downturn in the economy, the City has a balanced budget and carries a positive reserve.

The City of Hermiston has its own electric utility with one of the lowest rates around, if not the lowest, and will be able to maintain those rates for many years into the future.

The community has built a new convention center that is in constant use.  A new library was built by the community with no public funds.  We have a state-of-the-art aquatic center that has been enjoyed by thousands of patrons each year.  Our park system is beyond compare.  Riverfront Park, for example, is used by countless people daily, as is Butte Park.

We have a regional water system for the City capable of handling a growth to 50,000 people.  The City is working on a recycled water treatment plant that will be able to handle our growth for 50 years.

The City worked with Eastern Oregon University and Blue Mountain Community College to bring the Eastern Oregon Higher Education Center to Hermiston.  Our youth can now receive four-year degrees without having to leave home.

The City is happy to be working with the school district, Umatilla County Fair Board, and Farm Fair to move the fairgrounds and create a trade and event center on property near the City airport.  This is another project that will benefit all.  It will allow the fair to grow, the school district to expand, and the rodeo to continue and to expand, also.

This, and much more has been accomplished by past and present councilors in the last 20 years under Mr. Ed Brookshier’s guidance.  We are going through a very critical time right now.  It is difficult to listen to the media and others call the City government either incompetent or liars.  Does anyone really believe that, if we had been aware of the problems, the situation would have continued without being addressed?  If the general public, who elects our council, is unsatisfied, they can come forward.  As noted, a very small group of agitators make the most noise and draw attention to themselves.

Are we as a City and a community going to allow those few individuals to destroy all that has been good for us?  I am extremely proud of the people in our community and all the positive things I have seen happen.  We need to pull together, not against each other.  We have shown what can be done when people pitch in and work for the good of the entire community.

Respectably submitted Mayor Bob Severson

There was no other business, and the meeting was adjourned at 9:45 pm.

SIGNED:

/s/ Bob Severson

MAYOR

ATTEST:

/s/ Robert D. Irby

CITY RECORDER