ONTARIO
City of Ontario Finance Director Kari Ott took to the podium at the Ontario City Councilâs work session on May 6 to make a presentation about an amnesty program for civil penalties that residents may have incurred. The idea was initially floated by City Manager Adam Brown, who was not at the meeting as he was out of town.
After discussing the matter at length and hearing public comment from the lawyer representing Mayor Riley Hill in a lawsuit versus the city over civil penalties, the council took action to temporarily halt ordinance fines. The suggestion to put a temporary hold on the fines and fees related to ordinance violations until the program gets âfigured out,â was brought forth by Councilor John Kirby.
ONTARIO
Tuesday nightâs regularly scheduled meeting of the Ontario City Council included adoption of the the cityâs $43.2 million budget. This is an increase over the approved budget for 2020-21, which was $33.1 million.
There were two public hearings at the most recent meeting in adopting the budget for fiscal year 2021-22, Ontario Finance Director Kari Ott presented the cityâs budget for formal adoption.
The Ontario Budget Committee, met for three nights from March 9 through 11, to discuss the items in the budget and make alterations prior to formal adoption by the council.
State revenue sharing
âThe first public hearing is the easiest one,â said Ott, referring the hearing for the state revenue sharing.
ONTARIO
The Ontario City Council held a work session on Thursday evening, tackling a heavy agenda. Information on some of those items follows, including utility billing write-offs, potential over-billing of utilities for a carwash, complaints of discarded needles around town, as well as a public hearing will be held a week from today regarding the homeless shelter.
Utility billing write-offsAt the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020, the city of Ontario suspended utility shutoffs for customers, and that lasted through September of 2020.
During that time, quarterly notifications regarding past-due accounts needing collections activity and write-offs were also on hold, as explained to the council by Kari Ott, city finance director. In order to get things moving ahead, Ott needed permission to totally write-off $48,639 in delinquent accounts, with another $11,801 going to collections, six bankrupt business accounts totaling $1,785 and one deceased citizenâs account t
ONTARIO
After meeting for the third night, the Ontario Budget Committee on Thursday approved the city of Ontarioâs proposed budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year is $43.2 million. This is an increase over the approved budget for 2020-21, which was $33.1 million.Â
The Ontario City Council is slated to adopt the budget after a public hearing on April 20, with a published summary and notice of hearing slated to begin on April 1.
Getting to the final approval included several amendments to the proposed budget. The first of these which passed was a motion to remove a portion of the financing for the Ameresco Energy Saving Project. This project included items aimed to be energy-saving measures. These items were âautomated shut-off irrigationâ for $235,602, âinterior LED lightingâ for $104,413 and âexterior LED lightingâ $33,253. Also removed was $129,012 from the downtown street lighting project.
ONTARIO
Kicking off night two of the City of Ontarioâs budget committee meetings was Mayor Riley Hill who provided the first comments of the night saying that the national $1.9 trillion COVID relief package passed by the U.S. House and Senate this week would be benefitting Oregon, specifically Ontario.
Hill said he had received a call from the office of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and was informed that of the $1.9 trillion relief funds, $2.2 million of that amount would heading in Ontarioâs direction, he estimated that the city could be receiving approximately half of that amount within the next 120 days.