Ashland voters, Port Orford seafood and a Bandon schools ruling

You're listening to the Jefferson Exchange. Thanks for joining us. The JX starts today with the debrief, where JPR reporters discuss the stories they've been covering this week, including a new ballot measure in Ashland, Port Orford's dock revitalization, and a judge's recommendations regarding the abandoned school district. I'm Jane Vaughn, Housing, Homelessness, and Education Reporter. And I'm Peyton Gast, JPR's news intern for the summer. Reporters Roman Battaglia and Theo Greenlee are out today, so we'll start with this conversation we recorded with them yesterday. Roman, you reported on a number of things that happened with the Ashland City Council this week. One was about a proposed measure the council put on the November ballot. What is the measure? So it would require that any new fees or increases to existing fees on the city's utility bills would have to go to the voters for approval before they take effect. So right now, like most Oregon cities, the city council just has to approve these utility fee increases. But this would change that. And there's also some small carve-outs in it for increases due to inflation, state law and these franchise fees. But everything else would have to go up for a vote at the next election before it could take effect. Okay. So utility fees, are we talking about water and electricity rates? No. So those are set independently. This is for these... utility fees that are kind of extra fees tacked onto a resident's utility bill. It's because, you know, like Ashland and like most cities manage their own water use and Ashland also manages the electricity. So the utility fees can be used for different things, like helping to fund the police, the fire department, city parks maintenance, stuff like that. So they've been a tool for Oregon cities to help deal with rising costs rather than approving something like a levy, which can be more difficult and also needs voter approval. And Oregon's property tax rates have not been... increasing fast enough to meet inflation, so that's where these utility fees can come in and help fill that gap. And you also reported that this was originally a citizens petition. Why did the city council take it up instead? Yeah. So this ended up getting put on a ballot by the vote of the city council. In Oregon, you can either have the legislative body like the city council put it up or citizens can gather enough signatures to put something on the ballot themselves. So this Ashen resident George Kramer had been working for a while on this ballot measure and thought he'd gather enough signatures, submitted it to the city clerk. But it turns out there were a... couple of errors with the signature gathering process. There's this very specific process and all these rules about gathering signatures. And so in this case, some of the signature sheets did not have this necessary cover sheet. And one other one, the person gathering signatures signed and dated the sheet before collecting the signatures, which is not allowed. So they had to disallow all those signatures, and that meant there weren't enough valid ones to get it on the ballot. So the city council then decided to take this up themselves and put it on the ballot because if

they put it on the ballot, they get to choose the language of the ballot measure. So they're the ones who added in those carve-outs for inflation increases. Some council members still said, you know, they said if they didn't put it on the ballot, that Kramer would definitely go back and gather the signatures again to put it on the ballot, and so that way the city gets a little bit more say in how this measure is worded. So backing up, why did George Kramer create the ballot measure in the first place? It's because of some... recent controversial decisions by the city council to put new fees on these utility bills. So the city now has three of these fees for public safety, wildfire prevention, and parks. They approved these fees last year in what some people thought was this rushed process without enough public input. And people like Kramer want more say when they're being asked to pay more on their utility bills. So what did the city council have to say about it? So they voted four to two to put it on the ballot. They had actually considered putting on the ballot earlier before most of the signature gathering process and the city council denied that. So now, you know, some city council members switched sides, but, you know, nearly all of the city council members still, despite putting on the ballot, are still opposed to the measure itself. There's, you know, the concern that this kind of voting requirement could really tie the city council's hands in the future. You know, they've been facing this really tough financial outlook, and these fees are some of the few ways the city can raise additional revenue to keep these city services running. You know, putting them to a vote would make the budgeting work a lot more difficult because you might have to potentially wait. you know, one or two years before voters actually decide on it. And you don't know if they're going to approve it or not. So that just makes budgeting and accounting for that a lot more difficult. The mayor had said, you know, that a better process for raising these fees in the future is what they should do, like requiring a three-month period when considering to raise the fees to account for more, you know, community input. So we'll kind of have to see what voters in November think about this new requirement, this new ballot measure. Yeah, we'll have to see. Thanks, Roman. Theo, we're going to turn to you. You reported that the port of Port Orford is laying the groundwork for a larger seafood hub. What would that mean for the community? Well, the basic idea here is to give the local fishing fleet more infrastructure on the waterfront. And roughly 30% of the community members in Port Orford, either are fishermen or work in, you know, kind of the support industries. So right now, fishermen land seafood in Port Orford, but there's no real processor. There's no seafood processing plant, what formerly would have been, you know, called a cannery. So instead, much of the fish that they catch is loaded into totes and containers and it's trucked elsewhere. So the long-term vision is a hub with, they're calling it, you know, a seafood hub. It's basically a mixed-use facility. There's space for processing. There's going to be live holding tanks that they want and direct sales and possibly research and aquaculture, you know, growing kelp and oysters and that kind of thing. Okay, so you said that's the long-term vision. What projects are actually moving forward right now?

Right. So a lot of this is really in the research stage. But the most tangible project is a $500,000 seawater system. It would be funded by business Oregon. That's the state's economic development agency. And what this system would do, basically, is it would pump ocean water onto the dock for businesses. that sell live fish and crab. So, you know, that's kind of happening right now, but it's done on an individual level. Fishermen and businesses are just, you know, pumping their own tanks with seawater. So this would be a port-wide system. And the contractors hope to finish the design this fall and have the system running by next summer, summer 2027. And then there are a bunch of other research and development kind of projects with funding. I'll note the port's studying the hillside above the access road. They're doing an economic analysis to determine what kind of development, you know, the waterfront realistically can support. Okay, interesting. You also reported that federal researchers are studying the port's electricity use. Why does power matter so much there? So electricity is huge, and one thing you have to understand about the port of Port Orford is that it's very unique. There is what's known as a Dolly Dock. So there's no real natural harbor. The port is deep water, and that's why it's there. But because there's no natural protection, the boats don't really... pull up and tie themselves to the dock. Instead, the boats are stored on land and electric cranes lower them into the ocean, lift them back out. And as you can imagine, if the cranes aren't working, let's say there's a power outage or some sort of disaster, the boats and the crew could be stranded. And so Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is they installed these oldest monitoring equipment this week. And they're, you know, measuring the current usage and seeing, you know, what is required for future expansion. So how close is Port Orford to building the full seafood hub? Full seafood hub is a long-term project. I spoke with the interim port director on Tuesday, and she says they've been talking about this for about 30 years. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently has helped produce the design concept. And construction depends on major federal grants. The port submitted an application in June, and they're hoping for an answer by the end of the year or possibly early next year. Okay, great. Thanks, Theo. Thank you. Peyton, we're going to turn to you now. This week, you wrote about how outside firefighting teams are leaving Jackson County. Why are they leaving? Yeah, so as the East Evans Creek fire creeps up to just about 100% containment, we're sitting at about 95% containment, incident management teams from the outside are heading out, and they're handing off duties to local Oregon Department of Forestry teams. I spoke with Kyle Williams, who is the deputy director of fire operations for ODF, and he was saying that, you know, this is a good sign that they're leaving because it means that these fires are controllable enough to be handed off to the local forces. They don't need backup.

up anymore. And currently we have an incident management team from Florida who is going to head out tomorrow. And we've also had teams from the Oregon State Fire Marshall, the blue team from them, the East Sevens Fire had an incident management team from the Oregon Department of Forestry. So yeah, but these teams are now dispersing. And so if another big fire does occur, who is available to help? Yes, so Samantha Kadera is the public information officer with ODF Southwest. And she was saying that local forces are always ready to go out for initial attack. So. We have, you know, those local teams for one. And she added that, you know, if a fire does get too big to handle just by themselves, the local district forester or the incident, you know, commander can order up from across the state and incident management teams can come in. And, you know, that's how we got the team from Florida earlier this July. And part of the reason the local teams do that, they hand off these big fires, is to be able to manage this initial attack. And so the teamwork among these different services is really what's helping to put these fires out. Right. It's a lot of coordination across a lot of different groups to address it. And so where are those outside teams heading? So the incident management teams, they work on a cycle. So when they get done with serving one fire, they'll take a break and they'll let another team come in to continue working on it. And then after their break is over, it's just as simple as going to the next big fire. So the one sentence summary is that, you know, yes, these teams are leaving, but they really are just one call away should another big fire just get too big for local forces. Great. Thanks, Peyton. Thanks. And Jane, we're going to turn it around to you now. this week about a judge's order regarding the abandoned school district. What did they say? So the judge wrote that the abandoned school district did violate state law when it involuntarily transferred some of its teachers last year, last spring, about four of those teachers. And this is all coming from an unfair labor practices complaint that the union filed last summer, that union is the band in education association, the teachers union. And so the judge held a three-day hearing back in February. released her recommendations this week regarding that ULP, that unfair labor practices complaint. And she wrote that the district did violate state labor law because they transferred these four teachers after contentious union negotiations. They were in bargaining at the time. Teachers were members of the bargaining team. And so the judge says that they were punished for protected union activity and that the district also tried to discourage such activity. And union actions are protected under state law so you can't do that. that. This judge's order is not final yet for reasons I will explain. It's a recommended order. But she did also question some of the credibility of some of the district's witnesses. She said there was no evidence to support the district's reasons that they gave for transferring the teachers. She said that the former superintendent, Shauna Chuck Schumer, some of her statements strained credulity. So she really did side with the teachers there.

And can you give us some background on the situation in Bandon? So there's been a lot of turmoil over the past year, year and a half in this small district. There have been allegations of administrative misconduct. Employees have resigned. School board members have resigned. There's a third party investigation that they started. Some administrators that were mentioned in the complaint, including that former superintendent Chuck Schumer and the high school principal, Sam Dockery, have since resigned. So this is in some ways an important milestone. People have been waiting to see what the judge would decide. Also, we're still waiting for the results of the third party investigation. So that will be another interesting thing to see when that is released. For now, the interim superintendent, Steve Sugg, says they're looking forward to resolving the issue and moving forward. He'll be there for about a year as interim he just started. And then I also got statements from some of the transferred teachers and from the local representative for the Oregon Education Association. They called the judges order a huge win, a relief, and talked about vindication and validation and things like that. So what happens now with the judge's recommendations? So she recommended actually reinstating the teachers that were transferred. Three out of four of them have resigned already. So I'm not exactly sure how that would work. She also recommended that the district has to pay the abandoned Education Association a civil penalty of $1,000. and that they have to post this notice acknowledging, the district has to post a notice acknowledging its unfair labor practices in prominent places and also send it out to all of the union members. The thing is that this order is not final. As I said, it's called a recommended order, which is part of the process at the Oregon Employment Relations Board. So both parties now have two weeks to file objections with this recommended order. And then from there, eventually the full board, the Employment Relations Board, will actually issue. the final order from there, and that will be what actually has to happen. So we'll have to see what objections potentially get filed, and then when the ERB issues the final order. Okay, thanks, Jane. That's it for the debrief this week. Thanks for listening. You can reach the newsroom with comments on our coverage and suggestions for things we should cover in the future through our news tip line. That's on our website, IJPR.org. And you can find this program and more at jeffexchange.org or on your favorite podcast platform.