By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews

YACHATS – The Yachats City Council discussed all things water-related during its four-hour meeting Wednesday, going so far as to schedule another meeting for next month to discuss possible increases in water rates.

The city councilors also received updates on two high-profile projects and on efforts to prevent clear-cutting in the southern viewpoint of the city.

City Manager Bobbi Price announced that a long-awaited agreement has been reached with the Southwest Lincoln County Water PUD to provide water to Yachats during times of drought. The two water systems are connected by a pipe and valve at the north end of Yachats.

“The agreement says we can use it any time between August and December,” Price said. “And we have some agreements and terms for a seasonal fee and a maximum amount we can use, and the tariff and the daily fee.”

Price did not go into those details during the meeting, but released the information to YachatsNews on Thursday. The seasonal start-up fee is $10,000. Flow is limited to 100 gallons per minute, and during droughts the city cannot use more than 135,000 cubic feet of water per day.

Mayor Craig Berdie called preventing water emergencies a “huge deal” and said that while negotiations are not always easy, reaching an agreement is crucial.

“It’s so important that later today we’re going to revise our bylaw on water scarcity – only possible because this agreement is in place,” Berdie said. “It takes a huge burden off the city. It’s not free … they’re not giving us that water, there’s a fee for it, but it’s a reasonable amount.”

The City Council later revised the city’s rules for water rationing during droughts to provide a more accurate estimate by measuring the flow of Reedy Creeks and Salmon Creeks, from which the city draws its water, rather than relying on the flow of the Yachats River to calculate it.

The council and members of the Finance Committee also discussed ideas to increase water rates to generate more money for public works projects, which total $21 million over 20 years. The council also heard public comments and acknowledged two letters of concern from residents.

“We’ve received those, we’ve got your correspondence, I want to make that clear,” Berdie said. “But since we’ve had that correspondence, since the issue seems to be quite complex and we want to be able to fully answer people’s questions and I think we want to understand the issue, the city manager and I decided we’d like to schedule a working meeting.”

The meeting will take place on September 9th at 1:00 p.m.

“It is important to note that these tariff adjustments do not apply to residential water users, as the focus is primarily on commercial users who consume larger quantities of water,” the council’s meeting documents state.

The city also believes that adjusting the rates will result in a more equitable distribution of the cost of water service. Yachats has long had a practice of imposing lower rates on large users, such as motels, because they provide the bulk of city revenue by collecting millions in lodging taxes each year.

If approved, the proposed fee increase is expected to add an additional $230,000 to the city’s water and sewer fund.

To help large consumers cover their costs, the city is proposing to increase the processing fee that motels and restaurants can deduct from the lodging and food and beverage taxes they collect to 10 percent in January, up from 5 percent currently.

It also proposed increasing fees for licensed holiday lets by July next year and charging owners of vacant properties who have paid the scheme development fees in advance a monthly fee from January.

One critic of the plan so far is Jim Welch, a member of the city’s Public Works and Streets Commission. In a letter to the council, he said residential and vacation rentals “heavily subsidize commercial users” and provided a breakdown of rates from June 2023 to June 2024 from the Finance Committee.

This shows that the average cost of a unit (i.e. 100 cubic feet of water) for a private household is $22.90; for a vacation rental, $18.76; for a resort (i.e. a hotel with a restaurant), $7.48; for hotels and motels, $8.22; and for restaurants, $9.15.

In other business areas

• The city has hired a timber appraiser to determine the value of a 25-year lease on the trees it is trying to prevent from being cut within the city’s view on about 20 acres of a 40-acre parcel owned by Clementa Rocha of San Jose. The property is near the base of Yachats Ridge, just south of the Yachats River Bridge, but outside city limits. Rocha has now made it clear to city officials that he does not want to sell the property, but the trees have already been sold to logging contractor Joshua Howard. Both men have agreed to wait for the city’s appraisal and offer, which could come in late September.
• Permits have been received to begin renovation of the Little Log Church Museum and Civil West Engineering is actively seeking contractors. A start date for work has not yet been determined and is dependent on the search for a contractor.
• Bids are being sought to begin work on installing pedestrian safety guardrails along the west side of U.S. Highway 101 from the Yachats River Bridge to the southern edge of downtown. The Oregon Department of Transportation issued permits for the work on August 13.
• For the Nov. 5 general election, only two applications were submitted for three open council seats. Mayor Craig Berdie has submitted his application for a second, two-year term and council candidate Barry Collins has submitted an application for a full four-year term. One other application for council was submitted, but did not meet the criteria set by Lincoln County.

• Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at [email protected].