Dayton Chronicle - Your Hometown News Source

DAYTON-Four City Council board member-elects–Marchand Hovrud, Laura Aukerman, Tyler Dieu and Teeny McMunn–took their oaths of office at a special meeting prior to the regular meeting on January 12, 2022.

The City Council met ahead of the regularly scheduled monthly meeting on January 12 for newly elected councilmembers to be sworn in. Newly elected council members included Marchand Hovrud, who currently resides in Dayton and was sworn in, indicating she will fill the position until circumstances change. During the election campaign, Hovrud announced prior to election that she would be unable to take the council position because of plans to move from Dayton. She joined Laura Aukerman, Tyler Dieu and Teeny McMunn in taking the oath of office. Mayor Zac Weatherford congratulated the new members.

In addition, Weatherford acknowledged the missing council member Bryon Kaczmarski, who passed away recently. “Unfortunately, former Council member Byron Kaczmarski has passed away,” said Weatherford. “His service is greatly appreciated. He served on City Council for many years. He always did a fantastic job. He was a ‘numbers guy’ and he understood our finances very greatly and provided tons of input...That does leave a vacant position on our council. As always, Council will have 90 days to appoint somebody for that position. That position will be advertised for letters of interest...The deadline for applicants is January 28.”

Columbia County Emergency Management Director Ashley Strickland provided updates of the number of service calls received within the city limits last quarter. “For every two calls in the city, there is one call in the County.”

Undersheriff Robbie Patterson, who has returned from leave, provided updates for the Sheriff’s department, “We have two road deputies that’ll be starting [next week]–one is a lateral, but he still has to go through our field training process...and David Walling just graduated from academy...top of the class...and top overall.”

Patterson also said they are looking for three road deputies and one civil deputy to replace Tim Quigg when he retires, making a total of 12 deputies. County Commissioner Ryan Rundell affirmed the quarterly meeting to be held on January 20 with the City as agreed upon in the contract for County law enforcement, dispatch and municipal services.

The Council voted for Dain Nysoe to continue to serve as Mayor Pro Tem for 2022. Also put before Council was an agreement with AHBL, Inc. from Spokane for on-call planning and land use services for 2022. Councilmember Laura Aukerman motioned to table the action item in order to pursue local services to which the Council agreed. Aukerman suggested she would contact firms and present options to the Mayor to present to Council for consideration. Nysoe discussed appointments to committees and suggested new councilmembers review the committee positions and to indicate what their top choices are before they are assigned.

New Public Works Director Ryan Paulson provided updates about some of the work the crew has been doing since he started his position a month ago. The large amount of snow removal was a large part of the work over the last weeks. The Mayor expressed his gratitude to Paulson and the crew for their work and told Council they are working to form a new snow removal plan to be implemented this year.

Nysoe asked about whether they could plow snow to the middle of the streets rather than to the sides where cars get covered. Paulson answered to say the issue is the City has limited resources on removing snow from the streets and there is the question of where to put it particularly when there is a lot of snow in a short amount of time. The public will be made aware of the new plan once it’s complete.

The next meeting is on February 9.