Council extends emergency declaration on City Hall rehab

While efforts to rehabilitate Newberg City Hall after it was flooded in January have been ongoing, much work remains.

Enough work, in fact, that on June 17, the City Council approved a one-month extension of the emergency declaration invoked after a burst fire suppression pipe soaked much of the old part of the building on Jan. 15. The additional 30 days will allow the city to seek more funds to complete the repairs.

“(It will) allow another month to get FEMA assistance applications in and to facilitate our emergency repair contractor, (Salem-based) HMK Company, getting bids rapidly without having to go through the formal (request for proposals) process,” City Manager Will Worthey said in an email. “We are trying to get help from FEMA to get a new roof for city hall since we cannot afford it. A new roof with better R (insulation) values would reduce the chance of something like this happening again.”

The work became necessary after a January incident that saw a high-pressure fire suppression water line burst due to frigid temperatures.

“The flooding waters went through the entire building from the attic to the bottom of the basement,” Worthey said. “It ruined sheet rock, carpet, other flooring materials and destroyed other equipment and furniture.”

While Worthey said he believes insurance will cover the majority of the roughly $400,000 it will cost to rehab the building, an unknown amount may not be covered and the balance will fall to the city to pay.

In the interim, none of the city’s departments have returned to their quarters.

“Currently, the finance department and IT continues to operate from the Public Safety Building (with the) planning and building divisions from the wastewater treatment plant,” Worthey said.

Complicating measures is the aging structure itself.

“The reality is this is a 100-year-old building and not at all efficient by modern standards, but we keep making it work because we don’t have the funds to build anything better,” Worthey said.

Floods not new at City Hall

This is not the first time water has stricken city hall. In March 2014, a blocked line on Howard Street adjacent to the building caused water to back up a storm drain and overcome a drainage inlet in one of the building's exterior stairwells.

The water rushed in through the building's back doors, ran into perimeter drain systems and came up through crack in a concrete floor of the building's ground level.