Hood River Valley Parks and Recreation District Director Mark Hickox outlined for City Councilors the district’s three options for replacing the Hood River Aquatic Center and developing an overall master plan.  Hickox says they are putting together a master plan in conjunction with the City, County, and Port of Hood River along with the Hood River County School District.  Hickox says in an ideal world, the master plan would have come before the pool effort, but the condition of the rapidly aging aquatic center forced the issue.  Pool replacement options range from estimated construction costs of 13-point-five to 20-point-three million dollars.  Engineers estimate there are about three to five years of left before the cost of maintenance outweighs the cost to replace.

The Dalles City Council has changed its ordinance on giving non-profits and governmental entities a break on system development charges, fixing the credit at 25 percent.  In the past, the Council has had the authority to grant up to 50 percent, but decided to review that last September.  Mayor Steve Lawrence says the hope is that this will streamline the process.  In other business, the Council awarded just over $20,000 to a number of different projects as part of its small grant program for fiscal year 2018-19.  City officials noted a number of requests did not include budgets as required.

Northwest Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington joined a bipartisan group of their colleagues urged federal officials to oppose a plan in the Fiscal Year 2019 budget that would auction off transmission assets of the Bonneville Power Administration and other power marketing administrations.  In a letter the senators wrote to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, they noted a long, bipartisan tradition of opposing such proposals.  The senators expressed concern that the proposal would hurt citizens and local businesses who depend on BPA for affordable electricity, adding economic value would shift from families and businesses in western states to investors and lead to higher rates.  Utilities from across the Northwest have spoken out to express concern that selling off BPA’s assets would raise electricity rates and hurt consumers.  Fourteen Democrats and nine Republicans signed on to the letter.

The City of Hood River has received a grant from the non-profit Oregon Community Trees to help it celebrate Arbor Week in April.  The City, in partnership with EnviroGorge and Hood River Valley High School students, is planning a variety of events over several days to mark Arbor Week.  The first event will be a tree planting on April 27 along Rand Road between Sherman and Cascade Streets beginning at 1 p.m.  At Waterfront Park, volunteers will hand out information to the public about the benefits of trees, tree care, and tree protection during construction.  At an upcoming City Council meeting, local developers will be recognized with awards for outstanding tree protection.  And the City Tree Committee is also purchasing tree watering bags to loan out to developers, businesses, and homeowners associations to establish newly planted trees.  The City is using the Oregon Community Trees grant to purchase the trees and reusable tree-watering bags, the awards for developers, and a banner.

Pride Classic Baseball Tournament in Ahwatukee, Arizona Buck Division Monarch (CO) 11, Hood River Valley 3   Cron Division Chandler (AZ) 9, The Dalles 5

LifeFlight should be moved in and operating within a couple of weeks at the new spec building in the new industrial park adjacent to the Columbia Gorge Regional Airport in Dallesport.  Klickitat County officials recently held an open house at the building, the first to be built at the location, and County Commissioner David Sauter says it is generating interest in the rest of land, as they hoped it would.  Aerospace businesses have been a target for the County to bring to the park, which has 65 buildable acres in its first phase.  Sauter says the other half of the spec building has been leased out.

The City of Hood River is going to be studying parking over the course of the upcoming summer season.  City Manager Steve Wheeler says they also have done a small off-peak parking study that the results of which will be available soon.  City Councilor Kate McBride says the last time the City did a parking study about a decade ago, it indicated eventually something would have to be done to provide more parking, and that point may be arriving.  The potential for more residential uses downtown is becoming a factor, with McBride noting several entities want to put apartments in the upper floors of downtown buildings, but cannot because they are unable to provide parking.

The North Wasco County School District 21 Board talked about emergency procedures at its latest meeting.  They held the same discussion as many districts have done since the recent shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.  Superintendent Candy Armstrong was joined by local law enforcement and fire officials to go over the Wasco County Crisis Response Team, which has been meeting on a regular basis for a number of years.  She emphasized various agencies work together to be prepared to deal with an emergency situation.  Armstrong adds their plans have been put into use during major fires in recent years, along with the oil train derailment in Mosier in 2016.

Baseball Hood River Valley 4, Reynolds 0:  Five different pitchers combined to strike out 14 and deliver a four-hit shutout of the Raiders in HRV’s final game before heading on its spring trip to Arizona.   Ryan Gray drove in two of HRV’s runs. Homedale (Idaho) 7, Sherman 6 Sherman 13, Nyssa 0 Naches Valley swept Goldendale 14-1 and 8-0   Softball Hillsboro 11, The Dalles 1 Naches Valley swept Goldendale 17-0 and 19-2   Boys Lacrosse Hood River Valley 12, Oregon City 8   Track and Field Lyle-Wishram’s Brandon Montoya won the boys’ 100 and 200 meters and long jump at the Tiger Invitiational in Battle Ground.   Trout Lake’s Liz Fink won the girls’ javelin and was third in the shot put.   Kinley Troh was second in the girls’ discus and Brooklyn Emerson second in the girls’ pole vault for Glenwood at the Ramos Relays in Selah.   Ellie Rising had a second place finish in the girls’ 1600 meters and Dillon Rising a fifth in the boys’ 1600 meters for Goldendale at the West Valley Invitational,   Boys Soccer LaCenter 3, Columbia 1 King’s Way Christian 2, Stevenson 1

While many members of the Northwest Congressional delegation were lauding restoration of two years of funding for the Secure Rural Schools program for counties with federal forest lands, it won’t be a panacea for Hood River County’s budget issues.  The County currently faces a need to cut one-point-six million dollars to balance its 2018-19 budget.  Administrator Jeff Hecksel says they don’t have any kind of local numbers on the SRS payments at this point, but he doesn’t expect them to fill much of that hole.  The last time Hood River County received an SRS program payment, it was for $125,000.  In 1989-90, the County’s share of federal forest receipts was over $1.9 million.