Governmental Affairs Committee

By: Wendy Buck and Elizabeth Peters

Your chamber’s government affairs committee is hard at work, keeping abreast of activities and changes that impact Wilsonville businesses. Our next meeting will feature presentations from key individuals in Salem. Rep. Matt Wingard and JL Wilson of Associated Oregon Industries will give us a forecast of what we can expect during the 2010 Special Oregon Legislative session.

At our January meeting, Lt. Nick Watt, Wilsonville Chief of Police gave us an overview of services provided to the city. While still contracted with the Clackamas County Sheriff’s office, the team essentially operates as a Wilsonville Police Department. It currently has 16 sworn and one non-sworn personnel and is headquartered in the old city hall.

The Clackamas County Sheriff’s office covers fifty percent of the area of Clackamas County and is one of the fastest growing agencies in the state. Among the services provided are marine, search and rescue, air squadron, and SWAT/HNT. The Search and Rescue Team handles about 100 missions yearly (mostly walk-away from rest homes). Headquartered in Wilsonville are the Fusion Intelligence Center (intelligence gathering) and Intercept (child pornography).

Last year in Wilsonville, the department responded to about eight thousand 911 calls.

Cassandra Ulven, Public Affairs Officer for Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue (TVFE) gave an overview of the services provided by TVFR and updated the committee on the $77.5 million general obligation bond for capital improvements passed by voters in November 2006.

Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue serves Wilsonville and eight other cities with a total population of about 432,000. District-wide they take 34,000 calls a year, about 18,000 of which are in Wilsonville. Of those, approximately 250 are for fire and most of the balance for medical. They have 23 fire stations strategically located, and a majority of their employees are cross-trained paramedics. It costs about $1.6 million/year to professionally staff a fire station.

Their operations center was to have been located on Elligsen Road in Wilsonville, but due to a slow economy they were able to purchase and build in Tigard, which is more central. The Elligsen Road station may change into a health and wellness center, expanding it as a revenue center.

In November of 2006, voters in the district passed a $77.5 million general obligation bond for capital improvement projects. This bond costs each household approximately $14/year. With some of the bond proceeds, they are buying land for future fire station sites, purchasing 23 new fire apparatus (trucks) at a cost of $450,000 each, building three new fire stations and remodeling five stations including the Elligsen Road station.

Ulven noted the effort to change their service model to contend with increasing call volume. This will involve sending smaller vehicles with one or two persons, which would increase response time and decrease cost. In further efforts to reduce expenses, the district is looking at funding its own health care and cutting overtime.

The district continues to forge relationships through Memorandums of Understanding with several adjoining cities/districts such as Aurora, Lake Oswego and Hillsboro. They are pursuing grants, assisted by the lobbying efforts of Chief Jeff Johnson in his role as President of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

The Government Affairs Committee welcomes all members to join them for important news and updates the first Wednesday of every month, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. in the Chamber conference room.