Baker City council weighs lower park fees for nonprofits, events

Baker City councilors signaled they want a lighter touch on park fees when nonprofits use Geiser-Pollman Park for the kinds of events many residents attend each summer. The sharpest example came from Councilor Helen Loennig, who said the Powder River Music Revue could be charged $100 for each Sunday concert under the proposed schedule, a price she called too high for a free community series.

That concern reached beyond one concert series. Loennig said fees needed to stay manageable for events such as Crossroads Carnegie Art Center’s Day of the Dance and the annual Community Night Out gathering, and Councilor Gratton Miller agreed. City Manager Barry Murphy said the current park charge may already have functioned as a one-time fee for a multi-event series, and he suggested the schedule could be rewritten to make that clearer before the council adopts it.

The discussion centered on a basic question with real consequences in Baker County: how much should a nonprofit pay to use a public park that hosts some of the city’s most visible community gatherings? Geiser-Pollman Park is where Baker City stages Miners Jubilee, the Memory Cruise Car Show, the Powder River Music Revue, weddings, reunions and picnics. The Powder River Music Revue says its Summer Concert Series runs every Sunday from mid-June through early September and is free to the public.

The most expensive park fee already on the books involves Miners Jubilee. In March, the council unanimously approved a $900-per-day fee for Geiser-Pollman Park use during the four-day celebration, up from $150 a day. That raises the event’s park bill to $3,600. The city said the higher charge was meant to recover the cost of preparing the park and repairing damage afterward.

Baker County Chamber of Commerce vice president Luke Brown said the higher Miners Jubilee fee was not out of line and would not threaten the event. He also said the chamber had 98 vendors in 2025. Murphy later said the city would not charge individual vendors for the 2026 festival after problems with the 2025 vendor-fee rollout.

The city’s broader fee structure was adopted in 2024 under Resolution 3964, and the current park variance application already includes a $150 nonrefundable fee and a $250 security deposit. Councilors first reviewed the park and street-closure fee ideas in December and said they did not want charges that would force events to cancel. The revised schedule is expected to come back to the council, keeping the balance between city maintenance costs and community access squarely in play.