Bridgeport Council schedules graffiti ordinance workshop

Bridgeport City Council members will hold a workshop Friday, Aug. 8 to talk about possible changes to city ordinances to battle graffiti, dangerous dogs and other nuisances. It's scheduled for 4 p.m. at Bridgeport City Hall.

Council members have been talking about a separate ordinance for graffiti, or possibly adding provisions to the city's existing public nuisance ordinance, or reviewing the whole public nuisance ordinance, for a couple of months. What should be included, what shouldn't, whether some problems are more efficiently addressed with separate ordinances, will all be discussed at the workshop. It's open to Bridgeport residents.

In other business at the regular council meeting Wednesday, July 9, council members accepted a bid from Exquisite Coatings and Sealants of Portland, Oregon, for repairs to the city hall roof. The company bid $54,600, which means that city officials can pay for the project out of existing funds and will not have to issue a bond or ask voters for a construction bond. The company's inspectors found less damage on the roof than city officials had feared.

Construction is scheduled for August; Sept. 1 is the target date for completion.

Council members voted to accept the legal description of property submitted by Mark Goehry that will be included in a proposed trade between Goehry and the city.

The property is located at the end of Foster Creek Avenue; a vacant lot that has been platted but never developed. Goehry originally asked for the platted street to be vacated, but city officials came up with an alternative, trading a slice of city property on one side of Goehry's business, Tri-River Storage, for some of Goehry's property on the other. Mayor Steve Jenkins said in that way city workers will still have access to city utilities behind Goehry's building, but it would still be possible to develop other property between the Bridgeport Quik-E-Mart and SR 17.

Chuck Jones of the Alliance Consulting Group, the city's planners, talked to the council about a study that could lead to an agreement between five cities to conserve water and find additional water rights.

The five towns are Bridgeport, Brewster, Pateros, Rock Island and Entiat; they applied for a grant to study the possibilities, just to see if anything is possible. Jones said the study-and the consortium, if the cities decided to pursue it-wouldn't jeopardize Bridgeport's current applications or its negotiations with the Washington Department of Ecology over its existing water rights.

Roof Repair

Construction is scheduled for Aug. - with completion

by Sept. 1

Cost: $54,600