Othello approves facility use agreements

OTHELLO – Members of the Othello City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve two facility use agreements – for the Latino State Championship and the Columbia Basin Health Association Run for a Cause – as well as a Police Department dispatch console upgrade and a bargain collective agreement.

Charles Garcia spoke in front of the city council during Monday’s meeting in order to request that some of the fees involved in the proposed facilities use agreement regarding labor for preparing the softball fields be waived. Garcia said they were not present the prior years he has hosted the Latino State Championship in Othello.

“My big thing is, I’m asking you guys to consider waving that astronomical portion, I think it’s 9000 plus, because at the end of the day, I’m not sitting here making a paycheck off of this.”

Garcia said he has been hosting the championship for 19 years and has never made a profit off of it. He said this year’s tournament is set to be the biggest one yet, with almost 60 teams participating.

“You’ve hosted other tournaments here. And so there's always a staff that is supplied in that. I'm not asking for above that in the field maintenance. Whatever that comes with, that’s fine with me. They've done it for 19 years. They've done a phenomenal job,” said Garcia.

Council member Corey Everett said that the base fee of $1,800 to use the field should include the staff to maintain those fields during the tournament.

“This is exactly the reason we built that park, built those fields, to bring tournaments like this in. And he’s going to bring 4000 people to town. That’s a huge benefit in town.”

“I’m just sorry that we’re having this conversation right now, this late in the game,’ said council member John Lallas. We should have had some sort of meeting…that would have notified us of what direction we were going to go.”

Curt Carpenter, the director of Othello’s Public Works Department, said that the department presented the actual costs of the labor and fees for the use of the facilities despite supporting the fees being waived, because the city council has asked repeatedly to see the actual numbers.

“We don’t have the ability to waive anything, but you guys have to know the actual costs to make an educated decision on this tonight,” said Carpenter to the council. “We just want you to know what it costs to put these on – we’re in full support of this.”

Council member Genna Dorow said that it was reasonable to her to waive the extra labor fees even if it means the city is hosting the tournament at a loss, because of the other community benefits from the event itself.

The council decided to waive the fee as a variance to the costs outlined in the facilities use agreement, unanimously approving that facilities use agreement for Lions Park for a total cost of more than $3,800.

Later in the meeting the council also unanimously approved the facilities use agreement with the Columbia Basin Health Association for their Run for a Cause event. The council also approved the donation of more than $2,900 to the Run for the Cause event, which includes the cost of the facilities use fee on top of the original $2,500 donation.

Also during the meeting, the council discussed a motion to use funds set aside for the purchase of a van for the Police Department Explorers program to instead upgrade two mission-critical dispatch console units. Police Chief David Rehaume said that one of them had recently failed, and both of the consoles had outdated parts and software. He said the cost to update both would be more than $28,000. The Explorers van fund has $65,000 in it, according to the agenda memo.

The council approved the use of the Explorer van funds for the console units on the condition that the Police Department still requests funds in the 2024 budget for the Explorer van. The city council also unanimously approved the 2023 to 2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement between Police Department Support & Limited Commissioned Staff and the City of Othello.

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com.