Is Chicago the spiritual center of the universe – it’s where Jake and Elwood Blues set off on their “Mission from God” forty-five years ago. And now the Windy City can lay claim to… Da Pope!
It feels like a humble colloquialism. Da! Sweetly homey. We’ve loved seeing it in nationwide headlines these last few days. But then, we are back here in Corvallis, and where do we stand in this grand reckoning that is humanity wrestling to bring the holies back down to earth with the rest of us… Well…
Unity Shelter Unfunded, Plans Shelter Closings
Unity Shelter has taken a funding hit and will be going into temporary shutdown mode at both their women’s and men’s shelters. Their emergency hotel room program will also be suspended. The programs serve about 80 folks nightly, the closures are slated for July 1.
The nonprofit will be laying off about thirty-two of their forty paid employees – and they’ll be trying to operate anything they still can with volunteers and their remaining paid staff. The Safe Place microshelter program will continue.
“Unity Shelter relies on funds from the State of Oregon for approximately 90% of our operational budget, and funds are not currently secured to support all operations past June 30. Even if funding continues at some level, it might not be available until much later in the year,” according to a statement from the nonprofit.
“We have to prepare for the worst case, and for the organization to survive, we have to make dramatic changes to staffing and operations,” said Shawn Collins, the executive director of Unity Shelter.
Our take: Unity Shelter experienced the same sort of contraction and paring of staff and services back in 2023. Hopefully, local individuals, organizations and governments will step in to help. Back in 2023, the County bailed Unity out, but County finances are tighter now. The state will probably release some grant dollars eventually. Once on their feet again, Unity Shelter will need to examine and beef-up their reserve structure – both for the sake the people they serve and for the employees doing the work.
This is now doubly so, given the new uncertainties surrounding the flow of federal dollars to state and local governments, and nonprofits – all of whom should also be beefing-up their reserves about now too. After all, budgets are moral documents.
Poly Families and City Attorneys
Protecting the rights of our community’s poly families made the docket at last week’s City Council meeting – and as the conversation veered off-topic, it became downright illuminating.
“Councilor Olson and I seek your consensus to formally consider an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on family or relationship structure—a policy that would protect diverse households, including multi-partner families, multi-generational homes, consensually non-monogamous relationships, and asexual/aromantic individuals. Before directing staff or the city attorney to review the draft, we want to confirm council’s interest in advancing this discussion,” wrote City Councilor Alison Bowden in a memo to the council.
Councilors Olson and Bowden would like to seek an ordinance ensuring protections in housing, employment, and public accommodations for poly folks. They have been working with the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition to better understand the lived experiences that are impacting individuals and families in our community, and how to best protect their rights.
The next step would be for Bowden and Olson to come back to the Council with draft language for an ordinance – language formally reviewed by the City Attorney.
But: As City Councilors, they must have majority approval from the full Council to speak with the City Attorney. So, they asked the full Council.
Some councilors wondered if the City could legally have such an ordinance. Some wondered if there was sufficient staff to enforce such an ordinance. Some wondered if the City was even able to enforce its current anti-discrimination ordinances. Lots of wondering. Also, shoulds.
Should Bowden and Olson’s time with the City attorney be time limited. Should their breadth of discussion be restricted. Should Bowden and Olson be permitted to speak with the City Attorney at all.
Ultimately, the Council relented and approved. They can now speak with the City Attorney. Bowden and Olson anticipate having a draft to the Council in June.
Our take: We applaud Olson and Bowden for taking this on. We also think City Councilors shouldn’t need to get Council approval to consult with the City Attorney. These are duly elected officials. It’s an intrinsically demeaning requirement – and last week’s council conversation was downright embarrassing to watch. It felt infantilizing.
Cost cutting was the cudgel used to rationalize implementing the requirement last year. Corvallis contracts its City Attorney services from a private firm. Last year, the contract shifted from a flat fee retainer to hourly charges. This has predictably spiked the City’s legal costs. Other cities do this differently, Corvallis could look at hiring an in-house lawyer, or a hybrid model. In any event, the Mother May I requirement needs a relook.
City Courthouse, County Courthouse
Corvallis will be plunking down $1.6 million to purchase a building at the southeast corner of 6th and Madison. They’d been leasing it for the last 27 years, most recently for about $89,000 yearly. The building houses a municipal courtroom and processes parking tickets and such.
For context, the County is ponying up $48.7 million to build its new courthouse, with another $38.1 million coming from the state. The two courthouses are different animals – processing criminal cases is different than processing traffic tickets. Still, $1.6 million versus a total of about $86.8 million.
But then, dialing back to the City’s plans, they envision replacing the building with a bigger one as part of a $200 million plan to construct a new Civic Campus.
Our take: Back in 2023, Unity Shelter was able to reopen with a $1.2 million grant from Benton County. Regular Advocate readers probably saw where we were going with this – predictable, we know. Sorry not sorry. Like we said above, budgets are moral documents.
Coffin Butte gets a State Hearing
Republic Services’ application to expand its landfill has been a dumpster fire, and we’re guessing it’s headed to the circular file. But that’s been apparent for a while. We have to admit, the hearings have been, as the kids say, a gas.
Our favorite moment was when the facility’s environmental manager said that when he gets a complaint on the company’s website, he goes and walks around the dump and doesn’t detect anything.
We want to say we’ve been moved by all the deeply factual and thought-provoking testimony. But that visual of someone walking around Coffin Butte and not detecting anything…? It’s become an inside joke around here.
We feel bad about being amused by that. And none of it is funny, not really.
Putting that into specific relief, an upcoming hearing to revise and renew Coffin Butte’s air pollution permit. It doesn’t have anything to do with the County’s deliberations to either grant or reject Republic’s expansion application – but, hey, air quality.
It’s actually Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality that will conduct this hearing, and they will make the decision about the air quality permit.
For information, click here. To file a public comment before 5 pm, Friday May 23, click here. To attend the 6 pm, Tuesday, May 20 hearing, click here.
Meanwhile, in Portland
We can’t decide if this new commercial from the Portland Art Museum is a sublimely meta morph into new poetic forms, or just plain silly – a commercial trying to be a commercial and failing utterly.
We’ll leave it to you to decide for yourself, but be warned, if you blanche at the mere mention of body parts, and we know that some of our readers do, maybe don’t click on it…
By Mike Suarez
Advocate publisher Steven J. Schultz also contributed to this story
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