Mattawa City Council discusses adding park impact fees

Rachal Pinkerton/Sun Tribune Members of the Mattawa City Council listen to a report during a regular council meeting on Thursday, Nov. 7.

by Rachal Pinkerton Staff Writer
| November 12, 2019 8:28 PM

MATTAWA — Impact fees were one of several topics discussed during a regular Mattawa City Council meeting on Thursday, Nov. 7.

Darryl Piercy, Mattawa’s planning and building consultant, said that impact fees can only be used on capital projects and not for maintenance projects. Piercy is proposing that the city begin collecting impact fees on new construction. The money would be used to upgrade the park and make other improvements to Mattawa.

Piercy passed out a list of potential projects that the city could put the money toward, including a splash pad, a walking or exercise path, soccer and athletic fields and new restrooms.

“There is no priority to this,” Piercy said. “You can pick and choose what you do based on the funds in the capital projects fund. We have to establish a goal of what the impact fee will be.”

While the impact fees wouldn’t necessarily pay for entire projects, it would contribute to the matching funds that the city would be required to have when applying for grants for various projects.

“State funding sources require some kind of a local match,” Piercy said. “The key is to have enough funds available in this program.”

The council asked for impact fees to start at $500 per new residential unit. Commercial construction would not have to pay the impact fee. The impact fees will continue to be discussed and possibly adopted in future meetings.

In other business, the council approved a one tenth of one percent increase to the city’s property tax levy. The increase translates into an additional $1349.98 in tax revenue for the city.

“We do it every year,” said Mayor Scott Hindman.

The increase is based off of last year’s tax levy of $134,977.12.

The council also approved the police department to switch their phone lines over to an internet based phone system or voice-over IP.

“We’re on fiber,” said Joe Harris, Mattawa’s police chief. “Fiber is extremely reliable. Since we changed to LocalTel, we haven’t had any outages.”

The switch will drop the cost for the departments two phone lines and one fax line from over $200 a month to roughly $70 a month. They will have to purchase new phones.

While the new lines will come with a minute limit each month, Harris doesn’t anticipate that the department will get anywhere near it.

“It is like 25,000 minutes,” Harris said. “You would have to be on the phone non-stop to reach that limit. We’ll never reach our minute limit. If they’re that chatty, they need fired.”

They will also have a fax limit of 500 pages per month, a limit the department will also not hit.

One of the benefits of the new system is that it will allow the Mattawa Police Department to forward calls to MACC dispatch. They will also be able to message on the answering machine, in the case of an emergency.

Harris commented that other governmental and policing agencies use the same type of internet based, voice-over IP system.

“Sounds like we’re talking about spending money to save money,” said Brian Berghout, Mattawa council member. “This makes sense.”

Harris suggested that the entire city may want to switch over to this system at some point in the future. The council asked him to come back with more numbers for them to look at.

Grey and Osborne representative Nancy Wetch updated the council on the status of the city’s wastewater treatment system. The city’s current treatment plan is over 20 years old and a new wastewater treatment plan is needed.

“A large part of this is due to capacity,” Wetch said. “You won’t be allowed to grow if you don’t expand the treatment facility.”

The council approved a plan for Grey and Osborne to design a new facility. It will potentially go out to bid about this time next year.

Also having to do with waste water, Wetch said that Grey and Osborne will be performing a study of the various businesses in Mattawa as part of requirements by the Department of Ecology. Questions will include the number of bathrooms a business has and if it serves food.

“You have to have it for your permit,” Wetch said. “It’s not to pick on businesses.”

As part of the process, the city will be required to pass a pretreatment ordinance.

Wetch also gave the council the results of a study done to the reservoirs a few months ago.

“Reservoir One is in good shape,” Wetch said.

The only minor problem with Reservoir One is sediment in the bottom. It can easily be cleaned out.

Reservoir Two, however, is looking at needing recoating in the next five to ten years.

“It doesn’t need any immediate issues,” Wetch said. “It costs $1.4 million for that now. We need to look at that in advance and set aside funds. It’s on my list to come back in five years. The good news is that we don’t need to do anything immediately.”

Rachal Pinkerton may be reached via email at rpinkerton@suntribunenews.com.