ENTERPRISE — The Wallowa County Board of Commissioners voted Wednesday, May 18, to take advantage of a new law approved by the Oregon Legislature that allows counties to direct the state Department of Revenue to deposit money that ordinarily would go into the county Road Fund into the Road Service District instead.

The funds in question are Secure Rural Schools money under which 25% is apportioned to schools — the Education Service District — and 75% to the Road Department. It comes from federal funds received as payment in lieu of taxes counties have received since the federal government changed its policy on timber harvest in the 1990s and came up with a formula to replace the timber money on federal lands within counties.

“It dropped the stumpage fee to almost nothing,” Board Chairwoman Susan Roberts said of the policy changes. “It went from $3 million to about $50,000. So they came up with this formula, this Secure Rural Schools that went through, that would pay for trees they weren’t cutting anymore, which took away almost all the income. Then they decided that formula would give it to places that weren’t getting huge amounts of money. They did it on a population basis, too. Although Wallowa County has a lot more federal land than (for example) Union County, they get more money because they have a bigger population. It’s convoluted.”

Commissioner John Hillock agreed.

“It’s very convoluted,” he said. “Lane County gets the most in the whole state because they’ve got more people, although we may have more acres (of federal timberland).”

Commissioner Todd Nash said the whole “convoluted” problem could’ve been avoided.

“We could’ve foregone all of this by just having an agreement with the feds that they no longer subtract that payment, but they’re not willing to do that,” he said. “We’ve got to jump through the hoops to make it happen.”

Hillock said he believes no other Oregon counties have yet taken advantage of the new law. He noted that counties in other states have set up road service districts for the SRS money.

“That’s because their state allows it and ours did not, but now it does,” Roberts said.

The matter must first go before voters. The commissioners and their legal team have work to do before putting it on the November ballot. This elicited concern from the commissioners.

“It’s going to be one of those things that is going to be really difficult for people to understand,” Nash said. “The bottom line is we’ll have a half million dollars in our general fund that we didn’t have before, and it doesn’t do harm to our Road Department. It’s a win.”

Roberts said that under the new district — for which the commissioners would be the board — nothing would change in how the Road Department operates or is funded.

“What it’s going to do is put a little more than a half million dollars (in PILT money) in the general fund, which will allow us to fully staff the sheriff’s office and that would continue each year rather than us losing half of that money due to that formula,” Roberts said.

She agreed that the commissioners will have to make it clear what voters are being asked to approve.

“We’ll need to explain why it’s on (the November ballot),” Roberts said. “It doesn’t change anything. The Road Department will operate exactly as it always has. This just gives us the ability to tell the state we don’t want you subtracting that payment anymore.”

Bicycle playgroundAs they expressed hopes for at their May 4 meeting, the commissioners got to hear about the planned bicycle playground in Wallowa from Ron Pickens of Building Healthy Families.

As he handed out preliminary diagrams of the proposed project to be on the north side of the Wallowa School campus, he reflected on how the idea of the project came about.

“About a year ago, I was standing with a kid I mentor in front of the City Hall in Wallowa while I was on the (Enterprise) skate park rebuild project,” Pickens said. “This kid said to me, ‘When’s it our turn? When will it be our turn for a project for a skate park or something in our community?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m pretty tired after fundraising for this.’ But it really tugged at my heartstrings as I realized they would like to see something like this in their town.

”So we took that to heart and released a survey among the kindergarten through sixth grade in Wallowa to identify to families and community members what they wanted in the way of a new facility, what they might want to see there. So that’s where we came up with this bicycle playground project idea.”

He said the company contracted to build the Wallowa park is the same one used for the skate park remodel in Enterprise.

“The idea here is to create a facility that not only skateboards could utilize, but also scooters and bicycles and anything with wheels,” Pickens told the commissioners. “As you’ll see in the design, there’s a pump track of concrete so anything could roll over that.”

He said he’s been quite successful in his fundraising efforts and has put to work some of the kids he mentors who will make use of the park.

“After we released that survey, and we identified a facility of this nature, we hit the ground running in October with grant-writing,” he said. “(As of) today, we have submitted (requests for) close to 65 grants. … A lot of them were a shot in the dark — we knew that — but a number of them have come back and we’ve been incredibly successful with that.”

Pickens said he’s received more than 90% of the funding goal of $329,500. On May 6, the Reser Family Foundation pledged a match of $12,000 and the Roundhouse Foundation has pledged $10,000, in addition to the $15,000 Roundhouse already has given. On May 12, Pacific Power and Light donated another $3,000.

Pickens wanted to clarify for the commissioners and the audience that this project is separate and different from other recreational projects that have been ongoing in the county.

“I know there are several projects running simultaneously, with the skateboard park here, Rail with Trails and the Wallowa School project,” he said. “I just wanted to make it known what this was.”

The commissioners all were enthusiastic after hearing Pickens’ presentation.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Roberts said. “For years, we’ve been trying to think about something to do in Wallowa. I really appreciate this, having grown up down there, there wasn’t lots to do. This is great and I wanted to make sure that the commissioners understood how this is different from the other things that might be going on.”

Nash said Pickens’ plan goes along with other hopes county leaders have had for the Wallowa area.

“It’s been a major concern of Mandy Decker’s (the county’s director of youth services) to try to get something started down there,” he said. “We tried to get a youth center started last year and that didn’t happen and she lost some staff and some funding. This is a great idea and it goes along with what she’s wanting to get done down there, as well. It’s just more things for the kids to do.”

As a result, the commissioners approved a $7,000 donation from county video lottery proceeds.

Other businessIn other action, the commissioners approved:

• A resolution appointing members to the Northeast Oregon Economic Development District board.

• An order to approve the cancellation of uncollectible property tax as presented by the county treasurer.

• The receipt of unanticipated revenue in pledged support for the Wallowa County Fair and a transfer of those funds.

• An intrafund transfer of funds for Wallowa County parks.

• Easements for a new residential driveway on Jim Town Road requested by Tom and Mary Elder and a power line on O.F. Mays Road in Lostine requested by Karen Girod.

• An annual agreement with the Department of Revenue to map a maintenance contract.

• An annual plan of action under a municipal audit law to prepare financial statements.