Oakridge City Council meeting 1/19: Hills Street turnaround still undecided by Council

By GARY CARL/for The Herald  —  The January 19^th, 2023 Oakridge City Council meeting opened with “Public Comment”. Ms. Kelly Brewer once again railed against the city for the lack of a turn around on the dead end of Hills Street near her residence.  Ms. Brewer wants to use a portion of City’s property across from her residence as a turn around.

Hills Street turnaround proposals

The City property in question contains both the City wellfield along with critical drinking water infrastructure and a portion Salmon Creek Park.  For these reasons, City Planner Rick Zylstra opposes Ms. Brewer’s demands.  During the City Council meeting on November 3^rd, 2022 City staff introduced two separate yet similar options that create the opportunity for a turn-around that do not utilize or include the area being requested by Ms. Brewer. Yet, the two options provide for a turn-around in the same general vicinity as the one requested by Ms. Brewer.

Library bookmark contest winners honored

Oakridge Elementary School students, Kailyn Howard, Aubree Jackson and Eli Lindsay each received awards for their winning entries in the Oakridge Library Bookmark Contest.  These young students each received an award and an ovation from the audience of friends, family and citizens.

City attorney fees rise

In business coming before the Council, the City’s law firm of Leahy Cox, LLP was granted the requested attorney fee increase from $175 /hour to $225/hour for legal services.  This is the first increase since 2019 and better aligns with the prevailing rate for legal services in Lane County.

Event fee waivers passed for Greenwaters Park

The “Bus Fair” run by Brock Butterfield, was granted his full funding request from the city:  $2,500 from RTMP* funds, $10,000 from TRT** funds and a $5,900 fee waiver for the use of Greenwaters Park.

The  “Concerts in the Park ” was granted a park fee waiver of $1,500 total for three concerts:  July 15^th, July 22^nd, & August 12^th, 2023.

Council votes against staff and committee recommendation

The Hill Street turnaround issue was discussed. City planner, Rick Zylstra, recommended graveling the alley adjacent to the Brewer’s residence with an estimated cost to the city of $10,000.  This is also the recommendation of the Parks & Community Services Committee.***

After considerable discussion, the council voted against the city staff’s recommendation and the Parks & Community Services (P&CS) recommendation. Both staff and P&CS recommended graveling the alley as a means of creating a turn around.  Councilor Bjarnson, Kinyon & Coker voted no and Cutchen and Tarman voted yes.  Since the motion failed, the matter could either be sent back to staff for further work or revisited at the next council meeting.  Mayor Cutchen set the matter over for the next Council meeting in February.

Search for city realtor of record

The City Administrator reported there has been one response from the city’s Request For Proposals (RFP) for the city’s Realtor of Record for real property transactions.  The one response is from a local realtor who has its primary office here in Oakridge. Councilor Bjarnson asked whether local realtors have been notified of this opportunity.  In addition to the normal channels of advertising the opportunity has also been posted on the city’s website.

 

Colleen Shirley, the city’s finance director, submitted a Statement of Revenue and Expenditures. However, due to many transactions that have not yet been posted in the accounting system, the report was not current.  This provided limited use in determining the city’s current financial health.

Supplemental budget discussion pushed into February

Due to the lack of time remaining, consideration of the proposed supplemental budget was postponed until the next meeting.  This supplemental budget will make changes in the current adopted budget.  In addition, an underlying problem is that there was no supplemental budget passed in the 2021-22 fiscal year. This would have corrected past errors. The 2022-23 supplemental budget must attempt to correct those errors carried over into the current budget.

*RTMP is the Rural Tourism Marketing Program

**TRT is the Transient Room Tax

***Committees are used to provide information and advice to the council.  While the council is not obligated to follow recommendations of committees, it is the general assumption that the committees have time to thoroughly review information and make an educated and informed recommendation to the council on any particular issue.  In the instant case, the Parks and Community Services Committee made a recommendation which some of the council ignored.