The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

The Sisters City Council will award $5,000 to the Sisters Organization for Activities and Recreation (SOAR) this year.

The city council agreed at a Thursday, May 27, workshop, on how to allocate $9,000 of the $10,000 it gives for community grants each year. The council decided to hold over $1,000 for any plausible, new grant request.

The SOAR grant is in the same amount the city awarded in previous years.

In doing so, the council gave SOAR $2,500 less than the $7,500 SOAR requested.

The grant money will be used to continue SOAR's scholarship fund for children of low-income families, according to a letter from Tom Coffield, managing director of SOAR.

"We continue to face an increase in the number of children and families who need financial assistance to participate in our programs," Coffield said. "SOAR has a policy of never turning away any child from a program, so we need your help to cover some of the costs for children who cannot afford to pay the program fees."

Also the same as previous years, the city will award $2,500 to the Sisters Family Access Network.

FAN, which is funded by federal and state grants, provides mental and physical health assistance, emergency need assistance, and Oregon Health Plan/food stamps assistance to people living within the Sisters School District.

The $2,500 grant will aid in their regular services. During the 2003-04 fiscal year, FAN gave $2,025.49 to 23 adults and 24 children to assist with water, garbage and sewer bills, according to a FAN letter to the council. FAN served four senior citizens, seven married couples, six single mothers and one single female during that year.

The city also gave $1,500 to a feasibility study for the creation of an Environmental Education Center at Sisters High School, City Manager Eileen Stein, told The Nugget.

The councilors agreed to hold onto the remaining $1,000 until "something comes up."

"When I think of community grants, I think of kids and the needy," said Judy Trego, councilor. "Let's hold on to the extra $1,000 and see what comes up."

In other business, the council tabled a sewer connection agreement, that would have allowed John and Peggy Tehan to defer payment on their sewer connection for up to two years.

The council has allowed some property owners, including 12/30/66 Trust LLC and Trinity Christian Church, to defer payment for 24 months or until their existing septic system fails.

The city will re-evaluate the Tehan's sewer charge to see if they will be exempt from their systems development charge (SDC) because their property existed during the original sewer installment in 1999, but was not connected during that time.

If the sewer connection agreement had been passed, the Tehan's would have been charged a $2,994 systems development charge (SDC), $1,000 of connection fees, and an estimated $5,000 charge to install the sewer, said Eileen Stein, city manager.

The Tehans' property is located on North Cowboy Street, north of the elementary school.

Stein told the council that the Tehans have requested to be released from the SDC because their property existed before November 1, 1999 when properties in the original sewer plan were only charged a connection fee.

Stein told The Nugget she will have to research to see if the Tehans' property is located inside the border line for the original sewer plan.

"Some properties were not included in the original sewer plan because it was based on a line around the city," Stein said.

"Maybe they were outside it. I'll have to look at the original sewer plan and its boundaries."