Council approves viability study for sanitary authority despite concerns over criteria

The Depoe Bay City Council agreed to let alignment partners run a no-cost "viability" study to evaluate whether a sanitary authority could be a feasible wastewater option, but multiple councilors voiced concern the study's evaluation criteria are biased toward a joint sanitary district outcome.

Council members said the study's current criteria emphasize collection and conveyance capacity and a five-year implementation benchmark that some described as unrealistic. One councilor said, "If the option can be implemented and operational before the benchmark date of agreement termination...the study presumes a combined system," and argued that weighting could skew results.

Staff and the presenter said the contractor's role is to describe how the sanitary authority option compares to evaluation criteria and will not make binding recommendations. "Our goal is to develop and share information and make next steps support decision making," a presenter said, adding that the funding for the study comes from a regional grant.

Councilors requested several changes before the study proceeds: broaden the criteria to consider alternatives, extend the implementation horizon (a councilor suggested 10 years instead of 5), and explicitly add questions about redundancy and impact to Bay Street residents and ratepayers. The council agreed the study can proceed with staff-directed edits to the evaluation criteria and that council members will have opportunities to comment on the draft report.

The vote to accept the study was procedural (consensus to proceed); councilors emphasized continued oversight and made clear they retain authority over any future policy decisions or asset transfers that would follow from study findings.