The application period is now open for Oregon’s Regional Infrastructure Fund, a $10 million grant pool that is intended to go toward small community and tribal projects.

The program is open to local governments and tribes with populations of less than 25,000. The funding was created by House Bill 5204, an economic development package that was passed by the Legislature and then signed into law in April.

Construction grants will range from $100,000 to $1 million. They can be used for site acquisition, infrastructure construction and related improvements.

Planning grants are also available, from $25,000 to $250,000. They can be used for land-use planning, engineering, feasibility studies and project research.

“The Regional Infrastructure Fund is designed to meet our small, rural, and tribal communities where they are, whether that means supporting the engineering work that gets a project shovel-ready or helping move construction forward.” Gov. Tina Kotek stated in a news release issued on Monday.

The program is administered by Business Oregon, the state economic development agency. Grant applications are due by 5 p.m. on Sept. 16. Notices of awards are expected to be issued on Oct. 30.

Applications will be evaluated on criteria such as project readiness and alignment with regional community and economic development priorities. A scoring matrix and eligibility details are available in the Request for Grant Applications.

An informational webinar for applicants is scheduled for Aug. 18. Details will be posted on the Business Oregon website.

To learn more and submit grant applications, visit .

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The Dallas Police Department will get more space, but not the new station that city officials hoped for; that plan fizzled when voters rejected a multimillion-dollar bond in May 2025.

On April 6, the city council approved plans to reduce monthly stormwater charges by $5 and add a new $5 facility and equipment fee that will pay for the renovation of the city-owned ex-Polk County Itemizer-Observer building into a new city hall.

That means Dallas residents won’t pay more than they already are to fund the work.

The new fee structure will allow the police department to take over the current 22,000-square-foot city hall. That 90-year-old building will eventually be remodeled.

The $2.5 million that will be raised over 10 years from the fee is significantly less than the proposed bond’s $17.2 million that failed to gain voters’ approval. But it will help the city meet its goal of giving the police department more space in an updated building.

“The net effect on the bill payer would be zero dollars,” Dallas City Manager Brian Latta told the city council. “Because voters said ‘no,’ it required everybody to look and say, what’s next?’ There are immediate positive impacts for the police department.”

City Councilor Carlos Barrientos expressed concern that the city would remodel city hall before addressing the problems with the police station. The police department currently operates out of about 4,000 square feet, has no private interview room for victims, and has run out of storage space for evidence (it sits in stacks on the floor).

“The reason we got here in the first place is we wanted to do something to support our police officers by giving them a new police station with more room,” said Barrientos, who voted for the fee. “To me, it seems that the priority here is being put on a new city hall.”

Latta said the new fee will raise enough money for conceptual work to transform the current city hall into a police station and for security upgrades like lockable doors.

City Councilor Kim Fitzgerald said she supported the improvements but voted against the fee because it was not sent to voters.

She was the lone dissenting vote in the council’s 8-1 decision to enact the new fee.

“I know that we just reduced one fee, but to create a new fee, I have a little bit of a problem with that,” Fitzgerald said. “I think it’s a creative solution, but it’s still a fee. It’s still a tax.”

The approximately 12,000-square-foot Itemizer-Observer building is next to city hall on Court Street. The city purchased it for $660,000 in 2023.

Estimates from contractors for the work on the Itemizer-Observer building range between $1.2 million and $1.4 million.

When the renovation of that building is completed, 20 city employees will move into it. And there will be enough room to accommodate more.

The city will borrow about $2 million from its stormwater fund for work on the Itemizer-Observer building. It will repay that money with interest, meaning that fund will receive about $400,000 more than it already has.

“It does take some of those six- to 20-year projects and pushes them out a little bit longer,” Latta said.

The new city hall could be ready as soon as November, Latta said.

The city does not have either a timeline for converting the current city hall into a police station or a plan to secure funding for the project.

Latta said the city hopes to receive a grant from Business Oregon for seismic rehabilitation of the aged city hall. That state agency gives grants for up to $3 million for such work.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Statesman Journal and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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Business Oregon, the state’s economic development agency, recently announced grant awards totaling $74.4 million for projects to seismically upgrade 35 public education buildings and facilities used for emergency services.

The Seismic Rehabilitation Grant Program provides funding for projects to improve critical public buildings. Business Oregon administers the program to “help develop livable and prosperous communities” throughout the state.

All of the awards for this sixth round of funding range from $863,860 for a Chiloquin fire station to $2.5 million each for a Lane Community College building in Eugene, Lent School in Portland and Reynolds High School in Troutdale.

The Oregon Legislature created the grant program in 2005; Business Oregon became the administrator in 2014. To this point, $456.7 million has been awarded to a total of 252 schools and 108 emergency services buildings.

Public K-12 school districts, community colleges, and education service districts are eligible for grant money through the program. For emergency services facilities, the state agency mostly looks at first-responder buildings.

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From a young age, Raleigh Lewis knew that education would be the key to his future.

Born in 1939 in rural Georgia, he did well in high school and on graduation attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.  As an undergraduate, he was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, and it was at Lincoln that he met Donnie Holt. They married and moved to Hartford, Connecticut.

From there he entered the graduate program and earned his EDD in Education Administration at University of Massachusetts. The young family moved to Illinois where Lewis completed the Leadership Development program at JFK School of Government at Harvard University. He also went on to manage the statewide program for the Governor’s Office for the State of Illinois.

Throughout the 1960s, Lewis was active in the growing civil rights movement. He seized an opportunity to put both his passion for social justice and his education to work and accepted a position where he directed the Civil Rights Commission for the State of Washington.

In 1988 the family moved to Salem, where Lewis directed the Civil Rights Division for the State of Oregon and later, the Bureau of Labor Industries for the Governor’s Office. In 2009, he used his experience as Manager of the Office of Minority, Women and Emerging Small Business for the State of Oregon to become the Affirmative Action Direction for Business Oregon. During his tenure there, he helped develop the State’s COBID certification program.

He was eager to work with minority and small business owners, walking them through the process of training and certification, troubleshooting problems and promoting the concept of inclusive, equitable opportunities for MWESB firms in Oregon.

“Raleigh was instrumental in developing the COBID program at Business Oregon,” said Business Oregon Communications Manager Nathan Buehler. “The primary goal of certification is to level the playing field and provide a fair opportunity for small and minority firms to participate in government contracts. Lewis cut through the sometimes intimidating process with a ready smile and an attitude of, ‘How can we help?”

His efforts evolved to include the private sector, encouraging firms to keep diversity in mind on their projects and to appreciate the COBID-certification program.

Lewis passed away May 25, 2018 at age 78 after a career of over 30 years working for the State of Oregon, and a much longer career fighting for the human rights of all people.

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A proposed bill that would waive an array of contracting licensing fees for construction professionals looking to start their own businesses appears to be on the fast track to passage by the Oregon Legislature.

House Bill 4144 was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives on Feb. 16 and received a second reading before the Senate on Monday. The bill would waive fees and eliminate training requirements for four types of contractor licenses, as well as provide financial help for new, small construction businesses outside the Willamette Valley.

“I think this is recognized as a huge need, and what I’ve been hearing … is that people are telling the governor that someone in this state is finally connecting the dots,” said Bryan Hockaday, press secretary for Oregon Gov. Kate Brown. “The governor is very optimistic.”

The bill is part of Future Ready Oregon – a larger package of business initiatives announced during Brown’s Feb. 5 State of the State address. The goal is to boost the state’s workforce primarily in construction and related industries, but also in information technology, health care and high-tech manufacturing.

But the first concrete action taken under that banner is HB 4144. It would eliminate licensing fees and training requirements for individuals with at least eight years of professional experience who apply for residential general or residential specialty contractor licenses. It also would waive the state’s $375 plumbing and $150 electrical contractor licensing fees for people who meet the same criteria. It would not apply to license renewals, but only applications by individuals who intend to operate a business as a sole proprietorship.

It also aims to tackle the affordable housing crisis in rural Oregon by offering entrepreneurial development loans from Business Oregon and the Higher Education Coordinating Commission if the applicants plan to operate outside the Willamette Valley. Those loans would be used to hire and train new employees as well as pay for up-front costs like insurance, bonding and equipment.

So far, the business community is offering a mixed response.

“Across the state, but particularly in areas outside of the I-5 corridor, the counties and cities have heard that there are fewer licensed subcontractors to bid on work for housing developments,” League of Oregon Cities representatives Erin Doyle and Mike Eliason stated in written testimony given to the House Committee on Business and Labor. “This shortage has two impacts: one is that the cost to hire these licensed trades is higher than normal, driving up construction and housing costs. And second, it delays projects moving forward as developers look for available trades to provide plumbing and electrical installations.”

Habitat for Humanity, which currently uses 28 licensed contractor affiliates, recently built its 2,000th affordable home in Oregon. The group also testified in support of the bill.

“One obstacle Habitat for Humanity and other organizations providing affordable home construction and repairs frequently encounter is a lack of available subcontractors – especially in rural communities,” Executive Director Shannon Vilhauer wrote. “In many Oregon communities, the relatively small workforce results in project delays and increased costs.”

John Rakowitz, director of public and strategic affairs for Associated General Contractors‘ Oregon-Columbia chapter, agreed the contractor shortage is negatively impacting affordable housing construction. But the approach taken by HB 4144 may not affect that reality, he said.

“We understand there is a contractor shortage in rural Oregon that may be impacting the construction of affordable housing projects,” Rakowitz said. “We’re not convinced this bill will make a real difference, since the shortage is market-driven.”

AGC, he added, wanted to see the bill amended in a way that would safeguard the quality of any new contractors rather than solely look to increase their numbers.

“If this bill becomes law,” he said, “it guarantees the Construction Contractors Board and Building Codes Division will report to the Oregon Legislature in 2020 on the number of new contractors created by this new law and review any complaints received regarding these contractors.”

Future Ready Oregon resulted from Brown’s travels around the state over the past year, Hockaday said. She heard from a range of business owners outside of metro areas who emphasized their lack of access to skilled workers in a range of industries, he said.

“We hear that our economy statewide is doing quite well,” Hockaday said. “But those gains weren’t necessarily touching all communities.”

To that end, another key part of Future Ready Oregon calls for some $300 million in spending on career technical education classes during the 2019-21 budget biennium. It would try to ensure so-called hands-on learning programs are placed in every school district in the state, while Next-Gen apprenticeships would expand workforce training opportunities in the fields of information technology, health care, advanced wood and high-tech manufacturing.

It also seeks to increase affordable housing supply in rural Oregon, increase collaboration to match high-growth industries with job training programs and help ease worker entry into those same industries.

“The biggest challenge they have is attracting skilled, qualified local workers,” Hockaday said. “They have jobs out there, not all of which require a college degree, but they need these workers to get a couple more years of experience to get some hands-on learning to be qualified to take these positions.”

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The Port of Coos Bay is preparing to study the feasibility of building a marine terminal served by rail at the bay’s North Spit.

The port last week received a $50,000 grant from Business Oregon to study the feasibility, infrastructure needs and cost of building the terminal.

Port officials point to a need for another West Coast port to ease congestion at the ports of Tacoma, Seattle, Los Angeles and Long Beach, California.

“The state needs to have multiple outlets and inlets for cargo to travel through,” said Margaret Barber, spokeswoman for the Port of Coos Bay.

The port owns approximately 400 acres of property zoned for marine industrial use on the North Spit. The port has a rail spur that connects with the Coos Bay rail link and allows access to Union Pacific’s Eugene yard.

Nearly 40,000 40-foot containers of agricultural goods from the mid- and southern Willamette Valley, southern Oregon and the Oregon Coast travel to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma to be exported, according to a study commissioned by Business Oregon and conducted by ECONorthwest. That increases truck traffic on Oregon’s highways, port officials said.

The port of Coos Bay could offer faster turnaround times and new technologies to a niche market, officials said.

“As a smaller port, the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay has the capacity to grow, but is not locked into legacy technologies and old ways of operating,” port officials stated in a news release. “Our port can be nimble and responsive in a way that the large ports may not, handling a variety of cargoes.”

The port offers access to the federal navigation channel. Port officials are working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deepen and widen the channel from 37 feet deep and 300 feet nominal width to 45 feet deep and 450 feet wide.

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Sometimes excellence comes in a flash of inspiration. Other times, it requires decades to take a concrete shape.

More than 40 years from idea to conception, the Peter Courtney Minto Island Bridge may fit solidly into the latter category. But now that the Salem structure is a reality, it’s winning accolades and attracting positive attention.

The most recent recognition came from the American Public Works Association‘s Oregon chapter, which named the bridge its 2017 Project of the Year for projects in the $5 million to $25 million range.

Courtney, now Oregon Senate president, was a member of the Salem City Council in 1975 when he suggested building a bridge to link downtown Salem with Minto Island and Minto-Brown Island Park.

The idea languished for the next two decades until development of Salem’s Riverfront Park, a project that restarted conversations about the bridge. Several years later, the 2009 completion of the conversion of the Union Street Railroad Bridge to suit pedestrians and bicyclists spurred formation of a nonprofit called Friends of Two Bridges (F2B) – a group dedicated to bringing Courtney’s ideas to fruition.

As fundraising for the Minto Island bridge began in earnest, Aaron Kimsey stepped into the role of senior project manager for the city.

“It took another three years to get funding,” Kimsey said.

Working with an estimate that the bridge would cost $10 million, money raised by F2B was added to dollars from state and local sources including the Oregon Department of Transportation, Oregon Parks & Recreation, Business Oregon, the Salem Keizer Area Transportation Study and Salem’s Urban Renewal Agency Board.

“Through that process, the (Salem) City Council selected a design.” Kimsey and.

Guy Hakanson, vice president of technical services and chief engineer at OBEC Consulting Engineers, and senior project manager Bob Goodrich, OBEC division manager of bridges and structures, turned the design concept into reality.

“It was fascinating from a structural engineering perspective – very elegant,” Hakanson said.

The arches of the 305-foot-long, tied-arch bridge bow out from center. The resulting linear flow becomes almost visually weightless, as though the bridge were floating. Lighting is attached to the arches in a linear manner that follows the form of the structure so that it becomes even more ethereal at night.

“It’s visually deceptive … (and) very unique,” Hakanson said. “The weight of the deck actually holds the arches in dynamic tension. The idea is about connections. This is the final link that (along with the Union Street Railroad Bridge) connects three parts of one community. The bridges are a reiteration of that. I’ve been privileged to work at OBEC for 31 years and this is the coolest (bridge) I’ve worked on.”

Construction of the bridge, which spans the Willamette River, was handled by Stayton-based Legacy Contracting and began in 2015. Before ground was broken, though, more than a dozen permits had to be obtained. A slew of agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard, had to approve elements of the design and the construction plan to make sure there would be no negative effects on the environment or boat traffic. Work was confined to designated periods so as not to obstruct or affect river traffic or migrating fish runs. Care also had to be taken to protect wetlands surrounding Minto Island, much of which is in the floodplain and critical wildlife habitat.

The official opening of the Minto Island bridge earlier this year created the final link in more than 30 miles of off-street trails over nearly 1,400 acres of parks – a total area greater than New York’s Central Park. Each day, approximately 2,000 people use the bridge, Kimsey said.

“The response has been overwhelming,” Hakanson said. “I think it will forever change the skyline of downtown Salem – the lights, the shape – and don’t forget that Minto Island is a park. There’s really nothing there but green space, wildlife and trails, so it’s a destination and not just a thoroughfare. People love the lights too. It’s already an iconic part of Salem.”

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Portland Community College plans to build a 20,000-square-foot training center in Scappoose as part of a new venture: the Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center.

Last week, the Oregon Legislature released $7.5 million for the project, also known as OMIC. The center is backed by Oregon State University, Portland State University and Portland Community College, along with Boeing and groups such as Business Oregon, the city of Scappoose and the Oregon Employment Department.

Plans for the OMIC call for both a research and development center as well as a training center. The research and development center will be housed in an existing building that the Oregon Institute of Technology has committed to purchase. It will have about 25,000 square feet for research and development and 10,000 square feet for classroom, business and office use, according to a news release.

PCC also wants to build a training center holding approximately 20,000 square feet, said Nathan Buehler, spokesman for Business Oregon, an economic development group. The community college is currently negotiating with the property owner to build a facility, he said.

A PCC spokesman was out of the office and could not be reached for comment.

In addition to OSU and PSU, Boeing will serve as an anchor tenant, the groups said in a news release.

OMIC is modeled after the Advanced Manufacturing and Research Center in Sheffield, England. AMRC Sheffield is a 400-acre campus that employs 2,000 engineers and apprentices, and provides 800 member companies with access to training.

OMIC is slated to formally launch by 2017, although advanced manufacturing research activities by Oregon Tech, OSU and PSU are poised to begin immediately. Also, PCC will begin OMIC apprenticeship programs at its Rock Creek and Sylvania campuses until the new training center is built.

In April, PCC’s board of trustees passed a resolution allowing the college’s president to move forward with the purchase of property for the training center.

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