Watkins reflects on her dozen years at City Hall

Working on Baker City’s Central Park project has been one of Jennifer Watkins’ tasks over the past few years. Watkins, who came to City Hall in 1997, lost her job when the City Council restructured the budget. Today is her final day.(Baker City Herald?S.John Collins)

Today, less than two weeks after the City Council cut her job as part of a budget restructuring, Watkins is wondering what’s next.

“I grew up here, went to college at Oregon State and the University of Idaho, and then came back in 1992,” said Watkins, a member of the Baker High School Class of 1990.

Her husband, Chris Watkins, is also a local who graduated from BHS a year ahead of her and works in sales at P&E Distributing.

Jennifer Watkins worked as a gemologist at a local jewelry store until she was hired as an economic development assistant for the city in 1997. During the next 12 years she advanced to a combined position as assistant city manager and director of the community and economic development department.

Her career in Baker City government ends today, a result of the city shifting the responsibility for economic and community development to Baker County.

“There’s no position for me at the county,” Watkins said.

Now she’s weighing her options, including returning to college at age 38 to complete a degree in business or marketing.

“I haven’t really had much time to sit down and think about what I’m going to do next,” Watkins said. “”Right now I am just trying to wrap things up here and figure out who is going to do what.

“The administrative stuff will get done. The community development stuff and the grant applications are my biggest concerns,” she said.

During her final week on the job, Watkins compiled a list of the major projects she has been involved with, along with comments about what needs to happen to keep the grant money coming in, and other issues that someone needs to keep track of so things don’t fall through the cracks.

“I loved working for Baker City. It felt like you could really be part of the community and could really make a difference in the community,” Watkins said.

In appraising her career with the city, Watkins said one highlight was watching the Leo Adler Memorial Parkway progress from a dream that proponents had had for more than 20 years, to reality.

The next phase of the paved pedestrian path along the Powder River is under construction now between Washington Avenue and Madison Street.

“The thing that always appealed to me about the parkway, is that it preserved that river bank for everyone to enjoy,” Watkins said. “Keeping that in the public interest was something that I thought was important, so it wouldn’t be commercialized and locked up so people couldn’t spend time down there.”

Although the parkway was part of the city’s master plan before she came to City Hall, Watkins said she filed most of the successful grant applications that paid for the majority of the project.

“The last phase was probably the most difficult phase. We had to negotiate with eight different property owners,” Watkins said. “We negotiated easements with five property owners and we purchased two parcels completely, and divided one property and bought part of it.”

Watkins said she is also proud of her role in planning and securing grant funding that helped realign, upgrade, pave and build sidewalks on D Street from Main to Cedar, as well as Birch Street from D Street to H Street.

She also worked on creating the Elkhorn View Industrial Park in northwest Baker City.

“The industrial park is something I am very proud of. I think it will pay dividends to the community in the future,” Watkins said. “It is one of the best in Oregon.”

She said the city bought 63 acres to expand the industrial park for around a half million dollars in 1998, and during her tenure the city obtained grants to install water, sewer, wastewater, electricity and natural gas service.

“We put in a new street, we did a master plan and we got T-1 (fiber optic Internet cable) out to Behlen (Manufacturing), that is expandable,” Watkins said. “One of the biggest things we did was get the property certified with the state for industrial use. That was a very rigorous process.

“A lot of places have land that they call an industrial park, but it is in an exclusive farm use zone, or water and sewer are miles away, so it’s a long way from being buildable,” she said.

Baker City’s industrial park, by contrast, has all the services and certification so a company can build as soon as it has acquired the necessary permits.

 Cutters Edge and Powder River Precision are the first businesses to build in the expanded portion of the industrial park, which also has as tenants Behlen and OTEC, Watkins said.

“We have some other interested parties, but we’ll see what happens,” she said.

With Baker City’s limited air transportation options, and the rising cost of trucking, Watkins said completing the railroad spur at the industrial park is essential to attracting new businesses and for the long-term success of existing businesses in the industrial park.

“Union Pacific could pull their switch if we don’t get the rail spur completed,” Watkins said.

Other projects launched during her tenure that Watkins hopes will continue include completion of the Resort Street streetscape improvements, Central Park, Best Frontage Road improvements and a project at the city-owned airport that includes taxilane improvements, taxiway lighting and apron improvements.

Watkins was also instrumental in securing grant funding for City Hall improvements, including renovations of the Council chambers.

On the Resort Street improvements, Watkins said the city has received grants for most of the cost of the street and sidewalk improvements and lighting, but so far there’s no money to move the overhead power lines into underground conduit.

“That was on my list to figure out grants for,” Watkins said. “We’ve talked to OTEC about assisting with that, but it will probably take a combination of grants and property owners stepping up to the plate, maybe with a (Local Improvement District, in which property owners pay all or part of the cost).

“I don’t know how that is going to proceed. I guess the worst case scenario is we will have a new street, sidewalks, lights and benches with overhead power lines. That would be too bad,” Watkins said.

She’s also concerned that grant applications to complete Phase II of Central Park could get bogged down.

“Something I hope will continue is work on Central Park, or whatever they decide to call it,” Watkins said. “We’ve got grants to pay for the basics. There will be grass and trees and stuff like that, but the committee is still working on grants to pay for the fountain, river access and gardens.

“The amphitheater is probably going to be included in the first phase because we have to put the dirt somewhere,” she said.

As for the Court Street Plaza design connecting Central Park with the downtown historic district,Watkins said the City Council approved a design concept last year.

“I don’t know what will happen next,” she said. “Nobody is working on grants at this point. That was next on my list.”

 She said the Best Frontage Road project was awarded some funding in the transportation package approved by the Oregon Legislature, “but it still needs work and coordination.”

In her parting statement, Watkins said it’s important for people to understand that community development is an overarching umbrella that encompasses social, political, natural and economic aspects of a community. However, economic development provides the necessary resources to achieve success in the other areas.

“Without a focused economic development effort, success in the community development front will not be fully realized,” Watkins said.

By eliminating both the community and economic development functions within city government, Watkins said she believes it will be difficult for Baker City to continue to make significant progress in any of those areas.

“Healthy, thriving communities have well-balanced community and economic development programs that work in concert,” which Watkins said will be difficult to achieve without a functioning department.

The keys to a community’s success include leadership that creates a positive local attitude, planning that identifies realistic opportunities and a strategy to realize them, providing attributes, amenities and facilities that support the plan, developing partnerships to help finance and advocate for the plan, as well as public relations and marketing to spread the word, market the community and celebrate successes.

“I hope the community continues to succeed. It will always be my home town, so I hope it is a good place to be,” Watkins said.