PENDLETON — The Pendleton City Council was finally able to boost street maintenance funding in 2020, but it didn’t come from one of the usual sources.

Acting as the Pendleton Development Commission, the council unanimously approved a $6.2 million funding package to reconstruct streets in downtown Pendleton and some of the surrounding area at a Tuesday, Dec. 15, meeting.

It capped a year in which the city’s street repair plans changed drastically.

In the early months of 2020, the council was pursuing a 4-cent gas tax and seriously discussing implementing novel concepts like taxes and fees on events and hotel rooms to help address the city’s backlog of street maintenance.

But the pandemic forced council members to suspend their campaign for the gas tax, which voters resoundingly rejected in May amid heavy opposition from the oil industry. The council did pass an increase to its street utility fee before COVID-19 surged in the county, but members otherwise put their other plans on hold while the city’s economy attempts to recover.

Using the development commission’s budget to fund street repair is a relatively new approach for Pendleton, but it comes with some key caveats.

Because the money is derived from the urban renewal district, it can only be used within the district’s boundaries, which encompass the downtown area and some of the east and west of it. That means that some of Pendleton’s most populated residential areas — North Hill, South Hill, McKay Creek — won’t be covered by this package.

The state’s urban renewal rules also means the money can only be spent on reconstruction projects, meaning routine maintenance like crack sealing and pot hole filling won’t be a part of the package either.

The funding package will cover 13 street segments in and around the downtown area, with many of them considered in poor condition.

Southwest First and Southeast First streets, the two north-south roads that bracket South Main Street are on the list of streets in need of rvepair, but Public Works Director Bob Patterson said those two projects are on hold as council and staff decide on the scope of the projects.

The commission first began funding street projects earlier this year, when it approved $1.45 million to reconstruct Southeast Byers Avenue. With the Byers project coming in $200,000 under budget, the city is using the excess money to reimburse its other street maintenance fund for rebuilding two other streets it already rebuilt.

Although the city is limited in what it can do with urban renewal money, staff is hoping it will have a trickle down effect by allowing the city to use its other street funding revenue on other parts of town.

The city is planning on starting the first seven projects from the funding package in 2021 and the rest in 2022. And more street funding projects in the urban renewal district could come in the future: the commission’s total street funding budget from 2021-23 is $10.9 million.

2021

• Southwest Fourth Street, from Emigrant to Court

• Southeast Seventh Street, from Emigrant to Dorion

• Southwest Eighth Street, from Emigrant to Frazer

• Southwest Seventh Street, from Court to Dorion

• Southwest Seventh Street, from Emigrant to Frazer

• Southeast Sixth Street, from Emigrant to Court

• Southeast 15th Street, from Alexander to Byers

2022

• Southeast Third Street, from Frazer to Byers

• Southeast Byers Avenue, from Seventh to Main

• Southeast Byers Avenue, from 17th to 16th

• Southwest 10th Street, from Dorion to Emigrant

• Southeast Byers Avenue, from 13th to 16th

• Southeast Fourth Street, from Byers to Court