ECHO – The city of Echo is $50,000 closer to building its new skate park, thanks to the Ford Family Foundation.

The Echo City Council Thursday night approved a grant agreement with the Roseburg foundation, which was founded by Kenneth and Hallie Ford of Roseburg Forest Products Co.

City Administrator Diane Berry said the gift brings the city’s fundraising efforts to $100,000 in committed funds and donated labor. She said the $200,000 project the city envisions would include a covered picnic shelter, a restroom and playground structure as well as a skate park.

Berry said construction of the improvements probably won’t begin for at least two years.

More immediate construction, however, will begin on some streets in east Echo after the council authorized Berry to negotiate a paving contract with Blue Mountain Asphalt of Hermiston. Blue Mountain was the lone bidder, but its $45,750 bid exceeded the city’s resources for the project.

“That’s kinda weird,” Mayor Richard Winter mused. “We’re paying more for a skate park that we are for fixing the streets.”

After hearing from Merle Gehrke, chief of the Echo Rural Fire Protection District, the council voted to work with the fire district board to acquire the district’s 1950 FWD fire engine. Although it still operates, the district has placed it out of service. Gehrke wondered if the city was interested in displaying the old fire truck as part of its museum collection.

“I’d like to see it stay around,” said Councilman Pat Wood. It’ll be neat for parades and stuff.”

Councilman Ed McCallum agreed.

“I’d like to see us have it,” he said. “I’d like to see the city own it.”

In other business Thursday, the council reviewed a draft sewer facility study prepared by Anderson Perry and Associates. It details repairs and improvements the city needs to make on its wastewater treatment system and estimates the cost to be at least $500,000. Berry said the improvements will require increases in the city’s sewer rates, but would allow the system to accommodate 1,200 residents within the next 20 years. Echo’s population a year ago was 705, according to Portland State University’s Population Research Center.

The council also approved new lending rules for the Echo Public Library, standardizing them with other county libraries as recommended by the Umatilla County Special Library District. Some differences remain, however, because the Echo library’s records are not computerized, Berry said.