Monday’s City Council meeting could’ve been a snooze, the published agenda read as much. But then, well, Ward 5 City Councilor Charlyn Ellis said this, “Um, I’m not planning on running again.” And yes, she used the word um.
Okay, you want some context. The Council was discussing agenda item VII sub B, which titillatingly promised a weighty consideration of Council Policy C2.03. And yes, we know what you’re thinking, Oh My Gawd, C2.03!!
That’s right, it was all about renewing a policy that has freshly elected Councilors attend an orientation, and what Ellis was talking about at the time was how she thinks there should be a whole separate hour of teaching the newly elected folks about System Development Charges, or SDCs. Aww yes, the glamour of it all, leadership in our fair podunk.
Anyhoo, for reasons that none of the Councilor could quite come to grips with, the conversation took a turn. Read as they thought they were just going to take two minutes and renew a policy, but it turned into a conversation that took about seven hours. Okay, not really seven hours, but to this reporter it felt like time had slowed, and with each flap of the gums at the meeting, syllables elongated, and the world spun at decreasing speeds.
It was refreshing. Government-y people just nerding out on government-y things. No barbs and arrows.
Ellis was just making her cased for adding an hour of training on SDC’s for incoming councilors when she let drop that SDCs were as confusing as HE-double hockey sticks for her when she was just a wee freshman Councilor. Which is also when she dropped her info-bomb about not running again. Her point being she would not be personally benefitting, but was just looking to plant a training without expectation of sitting under it.
Also, she didn’t really say HE-double hockey sticks. The motion to add SDC training passed 7 to 2, with Napack and Mayers voting against.
Mayor Charles Maughan talked trash: At the same City Council meeting, Mayor Maughan observed that Republic Services has been going around to various city councils in the area and asking them to advocate for expanding their landfill.
Maughan also mused that it won’t be any city council, including Corvallis’ council, that makes this decision. It’s currently up to the Benton County Board of Commissioners. After that, it could go to Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals and then to the courts.
But either way, Maughan plainly sees Albany’s mayor weighing in on behalf of Republic Services as a little weird.
That weirdness finally motivated him, as Corvallis’ Mayor, to do a thing. Which was that he simply said he is personally against the dump being expanded. And yes, we just put the lead at the end because it’s opposite day. Okay, not really.
More words: Come next year, City Manager Mark Shepard’s job performance review will be conducted by a third-party evaluator. Ward 6 City Councilor Alison Bowden moved to have staff draft a Request for Proposal seeking a contractor for the gig. Council approved the motion with no hand wringing, just a few technical amendments.
And this next part is so boring that it may actually work. The draft will go to Council next February, it will probably publish soon after, and the whole review isn’t even due until next October.
As most readers already know, after quite a bit of drama, this year’s annual review of our fair burgh’s top staffer will be conducted by our City Council, just like always.
Our analysis. The League of Oregon Cities just named Shepard as this year’s best city employee in the whole freaking state. Like, he won an award so prestigious that it has an esoteric name, the Herman Kehrli Award. Anyhoo, we’re pretty sure all of this could mean a little less drama, at least about Shepard.
But then, this is Corvallis, so we’ll find other drama.
Chicken and Coffee
Obviously, social media has been atwitter (bad joke intended) with all this government-y stuff, right.
Nope. It’s all been cluck and brew.
Chick-Fil-A has taken to socials with its Thursday, October 9 opening in our fair little podunk. Their big grand opening promo: one free entree to anyone who places an order and is in a cow print. “Pants, headbands, earrings, sunglasses, inflatable cows, shirts, socks, the possibility’s are endless! Let’s show the cows our support in a big way!” says their post. Some people love that.
On the other hand, the Chick-fil-A founding family has reportedly given millions to organizations that oppose gay marriage and support conversion therapy – but now they say they don’t do that anymore. So, cow prints; not everyone is amused.
Our analysis, their misuse of the possessive form of the word possibility instead of their plainly intended plural intent; cute. They should apply to work here. We even get to use un-words like ain’t. Unwords is not a word, which is just really sad.
Also, there’s been coffee talk, mainly about the Starbucks closure in the Winco center. Social media has been divided. Pro has been all good memories of a comfortable place with a friendly staff. Con has been all about corporate coffee, and critiques of Starbucks’ general, umm, quality. Or quality-ishness.
Our analysis. Starbucks offers a reliably okay product, or at least okay adjacent. Nothing exceptional, nothing awful. But we’ll miss the outdoor seating area for meetings and such.
But this is where newspaper crews divide. Real journalists drink real coffee, and that means black coffee. There, I said it. But then, there is this whole other ilk, the ones that want an ice cream sundae that’s a coffee, the feature writers.
For the former, the real reporters, there is our fair burgh’s locally owned Coffee Culture, best black coffee around here, period. For the others, they make runs to Dutch Bros, because candy.
By Mike Suarez and Steven J. Schultz
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