Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
Wasco County Commissioners held a special meeting yesterday to conduct a public hearing on theOak Ranch Revitalization Project. When the county purchased a 159-acre parcel on the western border of The Dalles, it included an RV park that was left unfinished and abandoned.
The county obtained a $1 million grant from Oregon State Parks for its rejuvenation. But the grant was tied to a timeline, and the county needed to get the project going before that deadline or see the grant go to some other community’s project. The purpose of the hearing was to approve an exception from traditional competitive bidding process, which would involve hiring an architect to design the project, get the design approved, then go out for competitive bids. All that process takes time to unfold. Instead, commissioners voted to use a design-build contracting method. It’s not only faster, but offers more flexibility, as county administrator Tyler Stone explained:
“Probably 70 per cent of this project is already in the ground. It’s not we’re building from new, so we’re going to be have to be able to explore and be nimble enough to either look at, repair, replace, etc., etc.”
He also made it clear that this was to be for short-term tourist-oriented use:
“It would not be a long-term RV park. It would be a max 14-day stay RV park. So it really would be more catering towards people who were moving through the county, tourist activity, those kinds of things, but no long-term residents.”
Though commissioners did approve the request for the design-build options, they did go into it with open eyes. Chair Scott Hege noted some reservations:
“Possibly we’re gonna find a lot of this stuff that’s already there is actually unusable for a variety of reasons, y’know, so my concern is a lot of time it’s like you go in and you’re rehabbing something and often times it ends up being more work to do the rehab then actually just build new.”
The project is far from being a sure thing at this time, but the process is under way, and could help to fill an unmet demand.Commissioners had one other item on the agenda, a declaration proclaiming April 30 as National Vietnmese Remembrance Day.