For actions taken or not, last week’s city council meetings were eventful. Mayor Charles Maughan revealed the City won’t be appealing the Ellis ruling. He was responding to citizen concerns expressed during Tuesday night’s public comment period.
Participant sentiment largely supported the idea that city leaders should apologize to Ellis, and without further fight, pay whatever her legal fees may be. Officials have already racked up $260,000 in taxpayer legal spend on the case.
Of the five city leaders that had tried to oust Ellis from her council seat back in 2023, only two are still with the City – Mayor Maughan and City Manager Mark Shepard. The prior president and vice-president of the council subsequently chose to forgo running for another term last year, and prior city attorney Jim Brewer has retired.
Expect more food trucks in more places: Later at the same meeting, with little discussion, the council approved a long-awaited update of Corvallis’ food truck ordinances.
The changes will free the four-wheeled culinary creatives to deploy throughout town – they’d formerly been restricted to downtown. The council also approved upping the permitting fees, but still, they’re only $350. As a practical matter, it figures to take some time for the moveable feastmobile operators to land commercially viable and permittable spots in South and North Corvallis – but things are moving toward a tastier future for our fair little burgh.
In fact, a group is already making efforts to bring together a pod of drivable delish operators to South Corvallis – with a fistful of grant dollars aboard, they are simply seeking that just right locale from which to dish for a public that is soooo forking ready.
Oops, did we just over season with that forking – moving right along…
Silence on noise ordinances: City staff submitted a report on the prospect of lowering the boom on the noisiest mowers, leaf blowers and heating and air conditioning machinery – it came as a memo responsive to a request from the council, which all started when a perfectly nice seeming Corvallisite politely related, well, this…
Her bedroom window, once a source of restful cooling summertime breeze sounds, had been turned into a loudspeaker for her neighbor’s new 24/7 HVAC compressor. Yep, he planted the thing right outside her bedroom window. And nope, unlike some towns, we don’t have laws about this sort of thing.
Anyhow, the discussion centered on the idea that one’s peace and quiet shouldn’t be so completely at the mercy of someone else’s choices. Like, when basic good neighborliness fails, maybe there should be a law.
So, fast forward to last week, and the memo council had asked city staff to compile. It reports checking with six cities in neighboring counties and finding only one with a noise ordinance concerning mowers, blowers and heating and air machines. The one with an ordinance says it can’t exactly get to one-hundred percent enforceability – which seems obvious, but hey.
Anyhow, Corvallis’ city manager, Mark Shepard, said city staff are suggesting the council do nothing right now. The council – after its initial enthusiasm last year when it asked for the report – went eerily silent for a minute. But we don’t think you’ve heard the last of this issue.
After a little time, Councilor Jan Napack said she may have some rebuttal to the report, and she will be contacting city staff. Prior to Tuesday’s council meeting, we’d also issued an editorial critical of the report and favoring new noise ordinances – it took us about thirty seconds to google six towns that actually have noise ordinance, and like them.
Home Energy Score requirement nixed again: The notion of requiring home sellers to provide would-be purchasers a Home Energy Score assessment arose again at last Thursday’s city council work session. About the only consensus arrived at was, that, well… they may never come to a consensus on the idea. Okay, maybe not never, but at least not anytime soon.
The council was responding to proposals from the city’s Climate Action Advisory Board, or CAAB, which had submitted eight proposals in all, including the energy score idea.
However the councilors did find consensus on three of the proposals – and have asked city staffers to further examine the first two of them for feasibility and impacts.
The first of these is about sealing homes and buildings better, it reads, “City of Corvallis will work with community partners to expand and accelerate programs that facilitate optimizing the energy efficiency of the envelope of existing commercial and residential buildings: air-sealing, insulation improvements, new windows/doors, and roofs.”
The second one is about replacing appliances and moving Corvallisites to heat pumps, it reads, “City of Corvallis partners with other agencies on programs that facilitate replacement of heating/cooling appliances and water heaters in existing buildings. The focus is on moving to heat pumps (for heating/cooling) and heat pump water heaters.”
For both, CAAB is asking the City to consider offering home and building owners grants and low interest loans. But they are also saying that various state, federal and private dollars may be available too. CAAB is also suggesting the City partner with the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition and Seeds for Sol on the proposals.
For later examination, the council also liked the CAAB recommendation that the, “City of Corvallis provides 12 or more acres of land, such as at Public Works, on which community partners finance and install community solar projects. Community partners exist locally to manage, finance, and operate the project(s), so there would be no cost to the City. Pacific Power is required to act as a billing provider. The City would not be tasked with customer support.”
The Council generally agreed that determining if the City has enough land for the proposal would, of course, be a first step, and they have asked the City Manager to get back with them about that.
In other news…
Sen. Merkley and Rep. Hoyle Town Hall: Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley has announced he will hold local town halls this upcoming weekend, and for the one here in Benton County, he will be joined by U.S. Representative Val Hoyle, who represents both Benton and Lane counties. That one is set for 3 pm, Saturday, Feb. 1, Philomath High School – Auditorium, 2054 Applegate Street, Philomath.
If you miss that one, Merkley will also appear without Hoyle a little later in the day, at 5:30 pm, Saturday, Feb. 1, Linn Benton Community College – Russell Tripp Performance Center in Takena Hall, 6500 Pacific Boulevard SW, Albany.
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