At first glance, last Monday’s Corvallis City Council kerfuffle could be seen as just more fallout from the Ellis matter. The tension fueled unguardedness was notable. But amidst the boiling over between city leaders, there were nuanced takeaways.
We’ll concentrate on those. And for the bruhaha of it all, you can always play the video of the meeting, which you really-really should do, if for no other reason than to form your own impressions. There have been screamingly wide-ranging characterizations on various platforms around town. It’s a twenty-five-minute conversation that starts at three hours and two minutes into the video above.
Ellis’ viewpoint
The whole exchange broke out during councilor reports, which as usual, came toward the end of the meeting. When it became Councilor Charlyn Ellis’ turn, she candidly said, “I’m not doing a traditional counselor report.”
“I do have two issues that I need to raise because I’m really afraid we have lost the public’s trust,” said Ellis. “First, the people of Corvallis did deserve to know how we went from a small motion to a $500,000 debacle.”
“Second, I believe the people of Corvallis deserve to know the names of the complainants. If you raise the issue, you should have the courage to put your name on the accusation. Look the accused in the eye and say to that person they violated the charter, which they had sworn in my case four times to uphold,” said Ellis. “These two issues have not been addressed in the city’s gathering of public records. There are people sitting here at the diose who know the answers to these questions. They need to speak up to bring this unfortunate episode to a close.”
Ellis added that she sent her proposed motion, the one that started all of this a year and a half ago, to then City Attorney James Brewer the Sunday before she even made the motion – and that all he ever needed to do was ask her to hold off on the motion if he had a concern that it violated the City Charter. She also said, Corvallisites should know what conversations were had and between whom in the months between her motion, and the scheduling of a hearing to expel her from the Council.
Most readers will recall this matter came on after Ellis asked the City’s Climate Action Advisory Board she chaired at the time if they would like her to seek City Council approval to have the City Manager hire a support person for the Board. These City appointed volunteer boards commonly have a city staffer supporting their work.
The Board voted yes; Ellis asked the Council on their behalf. Months later, a five-person Leadership Committee met privately and decided Ellis’ ask probably constituted a violation of a City Charter provision that would result in her being automatically ousted from her City Council seat.
Seventeen former City Councilors, this paper, and other local media concluded the language of the Charter didn’t mean what the Committee was saying it meant, and that the matter should be dropped. The Committee didn’t drop it, and Ellis filed suit to stop the Committee’s expulsion proceedings. Ultimately, a federal court decided the City Charter section was unconstitutional, and that the City had acted retaliatorily against Ellis.
The City subsequently published a webpage on the matter, reporting, “As of February 4, 2025, the City of Corvallis has paid its attorneys (Brewer Coulombe PC, Beery, Elsner & Hammond LLP, and Markowitz Herbold PC) $232,797.68 in relation to the Ellis vs. City of Corvallis matter. Additionally, the City of Corvallis anticipates paying an insurance deductible of approximately $109,000 to cover Charlyn Ellis’ attorney fees.”
Maughan’s view
Mayor Charles Maughan believes Ellis should have allowed the Council to decide the matter, and waited to have sued, pending the outcome.
“So how did we go from nothing to $500,000 – somebody sued the city – that’s how,” said Maughan at last Monday’s City Council meeting.
“Council leadership at the time felt it was only right to have a conversation with Councilor Ellis so she wouldn’t be blindsided. So, we went and had a conversation – if there’s any one thing I think that we did wrong, it was that, because we should have just went to a due process hearing, because this body [City Council] is the elected body to make decisions. Not me, not the city manager and not the city attorney. And it should have just came before the council, and let the council decide.”
“Now, obviously, just like if it was any of you, or even me, I guess at that point, if I disagree with the council’s decision, then there’s an avenue to fight that, then you take it to court,” said Maughan. “And I think that would’ve been completely justified and supported. So, I don’t understand, not trusting a council of your peers to make a decision on the language and the charter and the concerns brought forth.”
Maughan also took personal responsibility for putting the matter on the Council’s agenda, and expressed concern that given the complaint, the City could have been sued if he hadn’t.
“We could have been sued not addressing the charter,” said Maughan. “There was a concern brought before the city manager. The city attorney was also concerned. All of that information was brought before me, who decides what goes on the agenda… nobody else says what goes on the agenda.”
“Council leadership watched the video – we read the language, and my first thought was, ugh, that, it’s questionable,” said Maughan. “And the only way to decide is by a body of the elected representatives of the nine wards to look at the same information and make a decision.”
“There’s no way to avoid that when there’s a question of a violation of the charter. And that will always be the case if it ever happens again in the future,” said Maughan. “That’s how our form of government operates.”
Cadena’s view
“I think it’s very well described in the documents who the complainants were. So, I’m sorry, I just do not understand that question,” said Councilor Tony Cadena. He then went on to explain the complainants were the Mayor, City Manager, prior City Attorney and past President and past Vice-President of the Council.
He also expressed the worry that many of the calls for further information have had more to do with seeking retribution than accountability, and that he is not a fan of that, but is a fan of learning from the past.
Councilor Moorefield then queried, “But it certainly seems like there’s, you know, there’s room for discussion about how we review what happened and, and what we’re gonna do to prevent anything like that happening again?”
“I do, I do think there is,” said Cadena. ”Okay. So I think… I’m interested in positive movement forward, not bullshit.”
During the conversation, Cadena expressed frustration with calls from a former City Councilor and others to recall the Mayor and himself, and to terminate the City Manager. He also said most voters care more about the costs of a new city hall, and getting Osborn reopened, rather than the Ellis matter.
Shaffer’s view
“I beg to differ,” said Councilor Paul Shaffer. “I have an awful lot of conversations with people in my ward and elsewhere in the city, and it, the issue comes up, and the cost of it comes up.”
“I think what’s missing from the written record is some clarification,” said Shaffer. “I’m not a big fan of anonymous complaints. I think that is inherently unfair to the person who is accused, period.”
“And secondly, how did this get from somebody may have violated the charter to the notion that there was not some intermediate pathway that was less cataclysmic and expensive than the route the city went down,” said Schaffer. “And I think there is a trust issue here. I know I’ve heard those words from people, that they don’t trust the city on this. And I’m not sure how to repair that at this point. But it’s out there, and I think pretending it’s not there or that it will just go away feels kind of naive.”
Our view
And now we’ll editorialize for a moment. We believe the city’s leaders need to chart a constructive path forward, and we don’t think they have to agree on everything to do that. Consider some of the points raised by the councilors and mayor.
For instance, whether right or wrong, it’s unlikely the public will learn who it was that first complained or exactly who said what when the complaint was received.
But maybe agreement can be found on policies and procedures for future complaints like these, including when anonymity is granted or not.
Likewise, it would also help if the expulsion process was clearly laid out and included the option for the Mayor to offer a post-Council decision appeal period when setting a hearing. This would allow some case-by-case discretion and allow a Councilor clearer choices than what Ellis had. For that matter, clearly outlined intermediate steps could be sound policy.
We also wonder if our city’s leaders could agree that Councilors need the help of our City Attorney.
They may benefit from the option to seek the City Attorney’s opinion of a motion before or while it’s being made. The seeking and acceptance of that opinion could shift the compliance burden from the Councilor. We wonder what would have happened if Ellis had had that option.
We understand this may mean hiring a full-time City Attorney for general day-to-day issues, and then also retaining a contracted firm so the City can access specialized lawyers when needed. We also imagine this change could save the City both frustration and dollars in the long run.
And as no small aside, we worry the current situation, for fear of stepping on the wrong eggshell, could discourage candidates from running for a Council seat in the future.
Finally, it may be true that only a minority of voters care about or even know about the Ellis matter.
But that minority may well represent a large enough plurality to decide the outcome of a city ballot measure or a race for office. These are the kinds of folks that vote. And answering to some of their harshest criticisms may prove essential for city leaders wishing to move our shared community forward – and one way to do that is to answer those criticisms with thoughtful policymaking.
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