Council doles out cash

By Andy Gates | Argus Observer
Tuesday, April 3, 2007 10:25 AM PDT

ONTARIO - The Ontario City Council voted unanimously Monday night to grant police more evidence space for $8,055, approved a $50,000 business loan and entered into a $70,000 technology agreement with the Ontario School District.

One of the places Ontario Police Department stores evidence is inside of a prisoner holding cell, which Ontario Police Department Capt. Mark Alexander said will not help his department become accredited with a police accredition agency.

Alexander asked the council Monday night during its regular meeting in city hall to let police use a newly acquired apartment across the street as an evidence room. He also requested the council release $8,055 from the city's general contingency to fund evidence lockers, window barriers and door frames for the new evidence room.

Some evidence is worth a lot of money, other evidence is not, and items seized by police range in size from as small as a bullet to as large as a door.

Freeing up the holding cell at the police station, Alexander said, would ease the custody situation, because juveniles cannot be put in a cell with adults and women cannot be placed in the same holding tank as men.

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Ontario police have four evidence storage locations - three are off-site, “and lack the qualifications of best practices when storing evidence,” according to Monday's Ontario City Council Agenda Report.

If the Ontario police move the evidence storage room from the apartment, Alexander said, then the $8,055 worth of storage equipment could also be transported, except for possibly the window barriers.

The evidence room resolution was the smallest expenditure of the night, and comes from the same coffer that nourishes the city's beleaguered Aquatic Center and library.

The city's business loan fund, or BLF, expended $172,550 in new loans between 2005 and 2006 - to Beer Valley Brewing Company for $131,950 and Ogawa's Teriyaki Hut for $40,600, according to a handout from the city.

Monday night, the council voted in favor of tacking another loan expenditure onto the list for $55,000, which would go to a new proposed restaurant in town called Gandolfo's New York Delicatessen.

Currently, the city's BLF has more than $220,000 cash available for loans, according to Monday's council agenda report.

While the above loans appear to be significant, the city has in fact advanced larger sums to companies in the past. For example, the city loaned Treasure Valley Renewable Resources - the firm pushing a bio-refinery south of Ontario - $402,955. According to a Monday's agenda report, TVRR paid the money back in April 2006. (for more information on Treasure Valley Renewable Resource's bio-refinery concept, check out stories on the Argus Observer Web site).

The city's BLF committee reviewed the deli's application and recommended approval of the loan, which would fund around 30 percent of the business' total project. The project is estimated to cost around $180,000, according to the Monday agenda report.

The loan would be used for equipment and materials with an annual interest rate of 6.25 percent for up to seven years, according to the agenda report, and the personal guarantee of the owner would be used as collateral.

Finally, the council voted to enter into a technology service agreement with the Ontario School District. The pact outlines a plan where the school district would provide all technology services to the city instead of hiring a single municipal employee. According to Monday's agenda report, that would mean an annual savings of $27,000, compared to hiring a single employee to complete the same amount of work, and the savings could be funneled back into the city's general contingency fund.

However, the savings could also be used to upgrade and repair the city's existing information technology systems, which was the recommendation outlined in Monday's agenda report.

Ontario City Councilwoman Susann Mills questioned Monday night if the technology agreement was required to go to an open bid. Ontario City Manager Scott Trainor submitted the proposal and was absent from Monday night's meeting.

However, Ontario City Recorder Tori Barnett said Trainor would not have submitted the proposal if it were required to first go to a bid.

Advantages of the proposed technology agreement with the school district include: decreased costs, upgrades to existing city technology systems, broader expertise and increased partnership with the school district, according to the agenda report.

The single down-side listed in the agenda report for the proposed agreement is the “loss of an in-house person to immediately respond to issuesŠwho is ‘tapped in' to the local needs of users.”

Documentation of background checks for the school district's technology workers would have to be available upon the city's request, the agenda report shows.

The agreement would be signed by Ontario School District Superintendent Dennis Carter and Trainor, and according to the agenda report, it could be dissolved upon mutual consent without penalties.