Stayton Discusses Skate Park During City Council Meeting

Councilors present Tuesday night were Steve Frank, Don Walters, Tim Grimes & Don Koenig by telephone. Presiding was Mayor Virginia Honeywell.

Salem-News.com

(STAYTON, Ore.) - In opening remarks, Stayton City Councilor Grimes said that this city is not serving all the residents by limiting where people, namely young people, can congregate or recreate. He spoke about the need for a skate park and that currently anyone wishing to skateboard must leave town.

He then asked members of the community to speak to this. A young 16-year old male by the name of Colton Bradley spoke to the city about the need for a skate park so that young persons have a clean place to go and burn off energy and skateboard where it's legal. They say they are tired of being chased off from many places in the city that have banned skateboarders.

He then addressed several locations in Stayron that might be a good place to have a skate park. His first location of choice was the lot where the former bowling alley was located, owned by George Laird.

The other location he mentioned was the lawn behind the city library and swimming pool. He then pointed out that he and others would be glad to do fund raisers to pay for such a park.

Councilor Grimes suggested that it would take a lot of support from this community and he urged Colton Bradley and his friends to begin a petition to show support from kids and parents.

In the next order of business, the council addressed the work session held last week. The councilors were trying to decide how to deal with an interim city administrator because of the resignation of Chris Childs, current city administrator.

It was suggested that the council appoint the current police chief, Don Eubanks as the interim city administrator. A motion was made and seconded to appoint Chief Eubanks to the job, but before the motion was voted on, there was considerable discussion about the chief's ability to cover this job and still run the police department.

Councilor Grimes made his concerns known that the chief, acting as the city administrator might not be in the best interest of the community because he would be splitting his duties of policing and city administrating.

The chief replied by saying that his second in command, Lt. Rich Sebens, was quite capable of handling things when the need should arise. There was further discussion about when the chief would take over for out going Chris Childs and City Attorney David Rhoten suggested that the right time would be midnight on the current administrators last day.

It was pointed out that by appointing the chief to this position, it would save the city quite of bit of money until they could find and hire a full time city administrator. Council at this point, called for the question of the motion on the floor and voted 3 to 0 on his appointment with councilor Grimes abstaining from voting because he was not at the work session and did not have all the information he needed to cast a vote.

Mayor Honeywell then brought up the issue of her previous but unsuccessful appointment of Jack Fisk to fill the empty city council seat. She then made a declaration to appoint him and then asked for a roll call vote to affirm her appointment.. Voting by phone councilor Don Koenig said no, as did Steve Frank and Tim Grimes. Don Walters votes yes. The appointment was defeated by a 3 to 1 vote.

Mayor Honeywell then opened the public hearing on the Land Use use of voter approved city land annexation. City Planner Dan Flieschman then made a presentation based on the recommendation of the planning commission to bring to the council the option of the city council voting on annexations of 3 acres or less and bringing to the voters any annexation applications of more than 3 acres.

There was a lot of discussion amongst the councilors about the language of the proposal. The discussion centered around the addition of a new state law allowing but not making mandatory, school districts to be involved in the process of land annexations for new developments.

If the language is left intact, the school districts could give a thumbs down on the application for annexations and kill the process if they feel they any new developments would overcrowd or overload the local school districts.

Councilors Grimes and Walters felt this might be an invitation for the school districts to hold the city hostage about bond or levy issues if they were presenting new ones. Proponents speaking for the approval of the land annexation measure were John and Susan Brandt.

John is troubled with all the information that is presented to the decision makers in the process of land issues that the public doesn't get to hear..The public is then left to make their decision about land annexations mostly from the 150 words in the voters phamplets.

He continued that they would not have all the facts that the planning commission or the city council had in making their decisions.

Susan Brandt asked that the city council leave intact the language about the school districts having a say in the annexation process. She feels that the school districts have been left out of those important decision far too long, and who would know better about overcrowding than the districts.

Dave Quillan spoke in favor of the measure and felt it would empower the community to become more involved with the process that make up city government if they were allowed to vote on issues like this.

Dave Nielsen spoke as an opponent for this measure by saying he was not opposed to the whole measure but is concerned about the change in the criteria of need.. He feels some of the language is redundant and that the existing process for annexation is adequate and allows for a competent process. He also feels that the 10 year law that was brought into the measure would force the community to be annexing land that it otherwise would not need to bring into the city.

The council then discussed the measure in great detail and they were troubled with language of the schools being in the process of decision making. The public hearing was left open to discuss again, at another meeting, but no date was set. It was suggested that at the next meeting, a Land Use Attorney be present at the next public hearing to answer specific questions posed at this meeting, but left unanswered.

The council took a break at 8:55 PM and during the break KENC radio was present outside when Tim Grimes asked Jack Fisk if he would head the Urban Renewal District committee. Jack said, No, and that he was disappointed with the council's decision in not recognizing the mayors decision to appoint him to the vacant council seat.

KENC radio then asked councilor Grimes who the council had picked for their choice to fill the empty seat, and he replied that the majority of the council had select Scott Vigil but the mayor was adament about having Jack Fisk on the council.

The council reconvened at 9:05 PM with the Mayor then announcing that she would like to appoint Scott Vigil to the vacant council seat and asked for a roll call of the councilors for a vote of approval... Council voted 3 to 0 in favor of appointing Scott Vigil to fill the empty council seat. The mayor asked Scott if he would accept the appointment and he replied yes.

Chris Childs, City Administrator then swore Mr. Vigil in and asked him to join the councilors at the council table. Scott will fill that seat until this fall when that seat left vacant by Larry Emery will be up for re-election.

Library Director Pam Pugsly's report indicated that the computer and internet use is way up at the library.

Public Works Director Mike Faught's report indicated that PP&L has finally agreed to move the power lines at the traffic light on Whitney street. The city can now finalize the street light and traffic light at that intersection. He also reported that the leak detection efforts underway have discovered several large significant water leaks and will begin to repair them. He brought the city council up to speed about the acquisition of two parcels of land the city would like to buy for future public spaces such as parks.

The first piece is located on Kendall way, not yet developed and lying behind the Stayton middle school and located south of Golf Course lane and in between Cascade Highway and Golf Club Road. They have identified several grants for acquisition and in addition to SDC funds set aside for the specific use to purchase public space will be able to buy this 23 acre site. A appraisal has to be made for the land purchase to establish a price before the grant applications can be made. He proposed taking $10,000 from the SDC funds for the appraisal. No decision by the council was made at this time.

This reporter from KENC Radio addressed the council about the inadequate and antiquated PA system the city uses for city council meetings, indicating that band-aide maintenance had been performed on this system for years and it is worn out and the sound quality is terrible.

Council and audience has had trouble for years hearing the council meetings. It was also suggested that with the forthcoming Community Access Television and the community radio wanting to broadcast council meetings live, and other media needing a media audio port, it was time for the council to take action and replace the system.

A proposal was made that an adequate system would cost about $10,000 and would not only serve the community center, but the new city hall if and when the city is able to build one. It is further proposed that the city pay for it from future revenue that the city collects from television cable franchise fees. It was indicated that the city collects a 5% fee from the cable company and has for at least 16 years but has never invested any of that money in community cable access or audio for the city council.

The matter will be presented to the city council with a formal proposal for equipment and usage. There were no further comments from the city about this proposal.

At 9:30 PM the city council adjourned.