August 1 Oakridge City Council meeting discusses fires, new STAR Voting system and refunds for local events.

On August 1, 2024, the Oakridge City Council held a meeting in which they discussed fire safety, the prospect of refunding canceled local events and the adoption of a resolution to put the use of the STAR voting on November ballots.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Bryan Cutchen made announcements relating to fire safety. “We’re surrounded essentially. Six of these fires are within 15 miles of the city,” said Cutchen. “They’re relatively stable, and the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team is doing a fabulous job not only with managing those fires but engaging the community.

Cutchen then recommended resources citizens can use to remain informed about the fires and fire safety. “If you’ve noticed online, there’s a ton of information available about the fires, about the smoke, about closures,” said Cutchen, who also recommended looking at notice boards for the fires around town, such as the ones located at Ray’s Food Place and City Hall.

Afterwards, the Council discussed providing refunds to two different local race events, the Sasquatch Duro bike race and Go Beyond Racing “Oregon 200” run, that were canceled due to road closures and smoke resulting from fires. 

Both events had requested 50% refunds for their park reservation fees, but council decided to deny the requests, instead opting to ensure that the possibility of cancelation would be taken into account for next year, as well as providing a future 50% discount.

“Personally I wish we could provide full refunds to the canceled events, but our Parks budget is heavily dependent on the rental fees and the funds are already budgeted for this year,” wrote City Administrator James Cleavenger in an email to the Herald. “I think the 50% discount for next year is a pretty reasonable compromise.”

Lastly, the Council passed a motion to approve an ordinance to put the decision of adopting STAR voting as Oakridge’s new voting system for electing City Council members onto November ballots. To clarify, STAR voting itself will not be put into effect on those ballots. Only a referral to let voters choose whether or not to adopt STAR voting will be making its way onto ballots.

STAR voting is an entirely unique system of voting, the implementation of which was suggested by Oakridge’s Charter Review Subcommittee as a replacement for the current system, which they feel doesn’t fully allow voters to show their preference for candidates. For more information on how STAR voting works, check out our article covering an earlier Council discussion on it here or on the STAR Voting website.

Personally, I have not seen any local candidates disadvantaged by the current plurality system in place, so I see no need to change it. I also believe the Charter Review Subcommittee exceeded their scope of work by proposing the STAR voting ordinance,” said Cutchen. “It is important the city offer information to the citizens about not only STAR voting but all the other voting system options, including the one currently in place so they may make an informed vote.”