Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
The Dalles City Council met last night. Under the public comment section, Beautification Committee Chair Debbie Farrar announced a free tree giveaway:
“Citizens can apply for one or two trees, large 8 to 12 foot tall, to be planted either in the parking strip or in the front of their house in the front yard. There’s an online application on the city’s home page and it closes August 1, so you have two months to apply.”
She said the trees were intended to beautify the city, increase property values, and provide more shade.
City manager Matthew Klebes reminded people with dogs about an important deadline:
“A reminder to the council and the community at large that dog licenses are required and that will be effective July 1st of this year. There’ll be some flyers and whatnot in our utility mailers and updates on our website. Thus far, we have 82 registrations.”
Dog owners who do not get licenses can expect to get fines in the future.
He also had some good news to pass on:
“I noticed today that our partnership with The Dalles Art Center for our roundabout project to replace the aded murals, received a $28,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, due to the hard work of the staff over there. This goes along with a roughly $30,000 grant from the Oregon Cultural Trust and $25,000 from Google.”
Councilors did pass a $107 million city budget that drew no public comment, since it had been thoroughly examined in the budget committee meetings.
All that took place in the first 40 minutes. The rest of the 3 and a half hour meeting was taken up with an executive session to review performance of certain city employees. On return to open session, the council passed a final item for the meeting. Councilor Scott Randall made the motion:
“I have a motion to award an 8.2 percent salary increase, inclusive of cost of living allowance and merit increase to the city attorney and the city manager, effective on their respective anniversary dates.”