Commentary: Oakridge public safety fee advances while basic ethics get trampled in the process

By DOUG BATES/Editor/The Herald — Years ago, Oakridge had an elected city official who was known around town for enjoying free drinks after work every night at a local watering hole. There was nothing illegal about it at the time, but accepting the freebies was unethical; city councilors, then and now, vote on liquor license renewals.

Therein lies a distinction that appears to be lost on some members of today’s Oakridge City Council: Actions that are perfectly legal can still be perfectly unethical.

For the past two months, members of the council and its advisory committee have been toiling on a difficult budget without any apparent violation of Oregon ethics laws. But they have engaged in plenty of lawful deliberation and voting that has been tainted by questionable ethics.

Since the very first budget meeting March 30, each session has opened with five of the 13 committee members — that’s a startling 38 percent of the panel — declaring potential conflicts of interest because they and/or their spouses receive income from the city. All have been coached to make this declaration to create a shield against accusations of ethics violations.

Some on the council have been abusing this shield

Oakridge’s $200,000 couple

The most brazen of all is Council President Christina Hollett. Her husband, a fireman, was the highest-paid government employee in the entire community last year, collecting more taxpayer dollars than the Oakridge city administrator, the Oakridge school superintendent or the Middle Fork District ranger. Yet Hollett, instead of abstaining from discussion or voting on issues involving her husband’s pay, has fought hard in every meeting to protect it.

Scott Hollett, a lieutenant in the Oakridge Fire Department, received $188,399 in wages and benefits in fiscal year 2020. Christina Hollett, an EMT in the department, received $10,159 in city-paid stipends during the same period.

No one is saying the couple didn’t earn or deserve the nearly $200,000 they collected. But with a stake like that in the outcome of budget deliberations in a cash-strapped community, Christina Hollett should have been the first council member to insist on abstaining from discussion of municipal pay cuts or stipend reductions.

Instead, she has been the budget committee’s most vocal and forceful protector of her compensation and that of her husband. Her conflict of interest, so glaring for weeks, reached its apex on Tuesday, May 25, when she voted with the committee’s majority to recommend that the city council approve a budget that would impose a three-year, $31-a-month fee on city water users to plug a looming deficit in the city’s fire and ambulance fund.

(Full disclosure: I won’t enjoy paying it, but I personally support this public safety fee. It is not a water-rate increase. It is a temporary charge to buy the city time to figure out how to save our ambulance service. As a 74-year-old with a leaky heart valve, I don’t want Oakridge relying on ambulances coming all the way from Springfield.)

Conduct that is legal can still be unethical

Christina Hollett is an outspoken leader who clearly influences her colleagues. Councilor Melissa Bjarnson and budget committee member April Allen are also Oakridge EMTs who receive city stipends, and following Hollett’s lead they have not abstained from discussion or voting on EMS budget issues.

After Tuesday night’s vote, which is purely advisory, Hollett said she will abstain when the budget comes to a final city council vote. After weeks of her tooth-and-nail fight to protect all spending related to the fire and ambulance services, her words rang hollow.

On occasion, members of this city council have stated that League of Oregon Cities advisers have told them that as long as they publicly declare their potential or actual conflicts of interest, there are actions they can take without breaking any laws.

That’s true. Just like in the 1960s when a city councilman could expect to get his drinks for free at the town tavern.

Herald Editor Doug Bates is a retired newspaper journalist who lives in Oakridge.