Weighing in at four hours and eleven minutes, Monday’s Corvallis City Council meeting was at times, tense. The public comment period was chock full of differing opinion on the Israeli divestment, or BDS resolution. Much of the testimony was against it, some of the most emotional testimony coming from Jewish people that have experienced hate and threats right here in Corvallis. Likewise, a young Muslim mother relayed a jarring and scary experience of local hate as well.
With the BDS resolution anticipated to be back in front of the Councilors in October, they sat more or less impassively through much of the testimony.
Tensions among the Councilors, however, did break out over the matter of just how they’ll be going about evaluating Corvallis’ topmost administrator’s job performance. Some of the Councilors believe City Manager Mark Shepard is doing an admirable job. Others would like to take him down a peg, or flat-out give him the boot. The whole matter had developed into some kind of Corvallis backwater version of palace intrigue.
Okay, we’ll tell you how all that happened, because maybe you’re new to our fair podunk. After all, Oregon State’s school year is just beginning.
So, basically, Shepard and Mayor Charles Maughan have been seen as the driving force behind a 2023 effort to oust Ward 5 City Councilor Charlyn Ellis from the Council. The attempt was lame. The then City Attorney issued pleadings that Ellis had attempted to coerce the City Manager into hiring someone, which electeds are understandably not supposed to do. But the primary evidence were two videos that kind of showed the exact damn opposite thing.
Like we said, lame. A little over a year later, a federal judge made a finding of lameness, using technical terms like unconstitutional, and retaliatory to describe the City’s actions against Ellis. She straight-up won. Wait, retaliatory. Retaliation over what.
Well, scuttlebutt among Ellis’ critics was that she could be a vociferous pain in the ear, and maybe a little manipulative and coercive. But proof? Also, voters. Others would describe Ellis as a strident advocate.
So. Even before the judge’s ruling, there was a regularly occurring election. Ellis ran unopposed. Our analysis at the time; she would’ve beat anyone taking her on. Voters had already decided the whole shemozzle was about insiders willing to usurp their will, and yes, even in podunk, maybe especially in podunk, there are always insiders.
So fast forward to this year, and a triumphant Ellis is elected Council Vice-President alongside her staunchest ally, Ward 7 City Councilor Paul Shaffer, who is elected President. So, with their new council leadership powers, would they seek payback? Their critics believe so.
Shepard serves at the Council’s pleasure, and they set his pay. And like lots of managers, his bosses, the Council in this instance, review his job performance yearly. You already see where this is going.
Months ago, a conversation started among the Councilors that bringing in an objective third party may be a good idea this time around. After all, there had been controversy at the, umm, palace. So maybe bringing in someone that regularly reviews city managers throughout the country would offer both perspective and a fairer process.
So, who to put in charge of finding an evaluator. You guessed it, Ellis and Shaffer, because nobody would ever see them as biased, right?
Critics, including this newspaper, noted that Ellis and Shaffer considered only one prospective organization as an evaluator. That organization, Lane Council of Governments, admitted they’d never done this kind of work before, so they then offered to hire a consultant to get the job done that also had never done this kind of work before.
Early on, freshman Councilor Carolyn Mayers sought a competing bid that turned out to be from a nationwide consulting group that’s done this exact kind of work over many years and for several cities. The cost would’ve been the same.
The Council never considered the competing bid. Lame, right?
Finally, at Monday’s Council meeting, Mayor Charles Maughan, who only votes if there is a tie among the Councilors, implored the Council to please put a pin in all of all this. So, they voted to just do the evaluation themselves, like every Council has before them.
Councilors Jim Moorefield, Alison Bowden, Jan Napack, Mayers, and Tony Cadena voted to reject hiring the Lane Council of Governments.
Councilors Shaffer, Ellis, Briae Lewis, and Ava Olson voted to hire them. Will this come up again? Our guess is fifty-fifty, we’ll keep you posted.
Sound move
After about an hour of barely contained rage toward one another over the City Manager’s performance review, the Councilors licked their wounds to rally around music. Okay, specifically, the City’s amplified sound ordinances.
And even more specifically, they suspended enforcement for businesses located in commercial spaces. They’ve also asked staff to come back with some research and possibly recommendations that would lead to what they would view as a more reasonable and objective ordinance.
Here’s why that happened: Local coppers showed up last Saturday at food cart hub, Common Fields, and were like, you don’t have to shutdown the party, but that music volume needs to go way-way-way down. Like, basically, off. Corvallis Police, it turns out, were responding to a call from a neighbor. In Corvallis, police don’t usually initiate noise ordinance enforcement, generally, someone has to call in a complaint.
And, well, one particular resident has been doing just that since March, and police have been trying to work it out with Common Fields ever since. Like, we’re talking twelve complaints in six months from the neighbor.
But then. Then came a call last weekend. Corvallis Police Captain Ryan Eaton tells us that when officers arrived this last time the music was so loud, they couldn’t carry on a conversation with the Common Fields’s staff. On the way there, the officers could hear the music blaring from blocks away.
Like, they really couldn’t do nothing, because laws. So, the officers issued a Special Response Notice, which is basically a warning that can be used as the basis for civil penalties.
After that, Common Fields announced over social media that they would need to shut down, at least until they could get some relief from the noise ordinance. And when they did that they also took the unusual step of stating plainly that it’s live events that keep the business afloat.
A petition was started, City Councilors were contacted, widespread love for what Common Fields does was expressed communitywide. As it turns out, many on the Council share that love. That vote to suspend amplified sound ordinances for businesses while something gets worked out; unanimous, even with all the palace intrigue.
Moral of the story: music unifies? Also, Common Fields hosts trivia nights, lectures and the occasional civic event. We’ll let you know what gets worked out.
By Mike Suarez
Do you have a story for The Advocate? Email editor@corvallisadvocate.com