Columbia County staff propose intergovernmental agreement to centralize Accela permitting data

Columbia County staff on March 12 asked the Board of Commissioners for direction to draft an intergovernmental agreement that would let the county pull assessor and address data, standardize it, and upload it into the Accela permitting system on behalf of participating cities.

County staff said using a single entity to prepare and upload APO (address, parcel, ownership) data would reduce inconsistent formatting across jurisdictions that has produced orphaned records, incorrect permit assignments and returned permit fees when permits are issued for parcels outside a city’s jurisdiction.

Andrea Drikhart and Robin Gallo asked the board to authorize staff to prepare the IGA and circulate it to Columbia County cities. Staff explained that the county has been uploading data to Accela since about 2017 and that several smaller cities that came online later have contracted outside vendors and used inconsistent formats. The county’s approach would make 90% of the data identical across jurisdictions; the only differences would be unique internal identifiers so permits go to the correct jurisdiction.

Staff described the technical steps: the assessor’s database supplies APO data, staff extracts and reformats it, then uploads it into Accela. Britney, described in the meeting as the county’s database specialist, would run the monthly process; Robin Gallo said the hands‑on work will be minimal. According to staff, the upload process should take “half an hour a month” per jurisdiction in the long run and is expected to cost each participating city no more than about $500 a year in chargebacks compared with current contractor fees.

Staff said St. Helens and Columbia City are already on board; other jurisdictions named in the discussion said they plan to come online or are evaluating their contractors before joining. Staff also told the board they are talking with the state agencies that rely on Accela data to coordinate update frequency; county staff prefer monthly uploads but will follow state scheduling rules where required.

Commissioners did not take a formal vote at the meeting; staff said the next step would be to draft the IGA and circulate it to the cities. Spencer (staff) had requested that county staff meet with city representatives before circulating a draft, and staff said they had already met informally to confirm interest.

The proposal, if approved by the parties, is intended to reduce user error in address and map/tax-lot syntax, improve 911 addressing consistency, and cut contractor costs for smaller cities. No formal agreement or funding authorization was adopted at the March 12 meeting.