In contrast to the Superbowl battle that turned into an easy blowout, the Grants Pass City Council and Josephine County Board of County Commissioners will face some intense battles this week.
Kicking off the first battle will be the Grants Pass City Council’s workshop today, Monday February 10th, where newly elected City Council members are learning the hard way that they need to follow all state homeless laws and need to learn to listen to the advice of the City attorney. After a controversial decision to close the largest of the two designated “camping” sites the day after they were sworn into office as well as restrict the camping hours in the other much smaller camping location on 7th street, the City is now facing a new lawsuit for not following state law.
The four newly elected City Council members plus former Council Member Dwayne Yunker ignored the advice of the City Attorney and City Manager in favor of the pursuit of a political agenda, and now the City faces a lawsuit in which a local judge agreed that the City’s new homeless regulations don’t meet the “objectively reasonable” standard of HB 3115, approved in the 2021 Legislative Session. In short, if a local government chooses to regulate where homeless can camp/rest, the regulations must be “objectively reasonable,” without providing a strict definition of what this means.
Grants Pass must now revamp the newly approved regulations and due to the new lawsuit the judge ruled that homeless can sleep/rest in any public property in the City for the next two weeks (barring streets, sidewalks). If the City doesn’t revise regulations and camping allowance locations quickly, this two-week reprieve could turn into another longer-term injunction. The current lawsuit allowance appears to be even more broad than the injunction in place before the Supreme Court ruling last summer, because the massive Reinhart Volunteer Park was excluded from the previous injunction.
What was originally scheduled as a private executive session meeting of the City Council to discuss this lawsuit is now scheduled as a public workshop at 11:45am on Monday with an agenda item titled “Homeless properties – resting sites and hours.” After campaigning for City Council positions with broad agendas to solve this homeless crisis and close down these “camping” locations, newly elected City Council members face the harsh reality that current state law will require them to supply publicly owned or operated camping/resting sites in order for local regulations to be considered “objectively reasonable.”
This is likely to be quite the battle for newly elected Council Members, after campaign promises to shut these homeless sites down and clean up the homeless issue. Newly elected Council Member and current Council President Victoria Marshall attempted to defend the Council’s recent decision by saying that Council Member Dwayne Yunker sought legal advice from outside attorneys before the new slate of City Council Members revamped homeless site regulations. Except, no details of that legal advice have ever been made public, and Dwayne Yunker has since resigned from the City Council in order to focus on his position as the State Rep for most of Josephine County.
And based on the judge’s preliminary ruling, the City needs to act quickly on changing homeless regulations or risk the very broad 2-week camping allowance to be made a longer-term allowance. Tents have already been observed again in many City parks last week, much to the disappointment of local residents.
A state lobbyist recently commented on the new Council’s recent decision on changes to homeless camping site regulations. From what he is hearing from his contacts throughout the state, it will be even harder to relax homeless regulations at the state level due to actions such as the one the Grants Pass City Council made last month. They say that these regulations need to be kept in force exactly because cities may try to do exactly what the Grants Pass City Council tried to do in the last month.
Based on discussions of the previous City Council, acceptable locations that could potentially serve as homeless resting/camping locations are few and far between. The J Street site won’t be reactivated given that the new water plant construction activities on the site will begin in a few months. The current 7th street site next to the Police Station won’t suffice alone due to size and other limitations.
Other locations floated in the past all have unique pros and cons but mostly cons such as cost or proximity to businesses or residential neighborhoods. These include the West end of Riverside Park, MINT’s Parker’s Place buildings, an expensive commercial building on the north end of Washington Blvd, a portion of the large group of properties the City recently purchased for housing development purposes near the intersection of Washington and Midland Ave, a portion of the City property next to the Parkway Public Safety station, the vacant lot near City Hall at 6th and A Streets, and a large vacant property the City owns just outside the City on Foothill Blvd.
As I told one City Council member last week, and as I’ve been saying since August of last year, the City’s large vacant property just outside City limits on Foothill Blvd seems to be the property with the fewest conflicts that would also likely be the least costly to the City. This property is about 1 mile outside of the City on Foothill and is a large site of approximately 16 acres of undeveloped property that won’t be able to hold any kind of typical building development due to being used as a landfill 70+ years ago before modern regulations on landfills. Walking around the property, you wouldn’t be able to tell it was a landfill all those years ago. A few people have been “camping” on that large property for many years and I observed this in person when I walked the property about 7 years ago. I walked the property again last year and there are still signs of current campers.
The Foothill property could potentially serve both the City’s short-term needs to supply a camping site and could potentially serve as a longer-term homeless services location. Many local people and groups want to help solve this homeless crisis and now is the time to harness volunteers and nonprofits to prepare this site for this type of use. Some temporary trailers could potentially be set up on the lower part of the site for the managers of the site and for special need “campers,” and there are several parts of the site that are flat enough to serve as locations for temporary smaller structures, pallet shelters, or tents. Some transportation allowances would need to be provided given its location about 1 mile outside of town, but the cost and availability of medical and regular transportation allowances may be more cost effective than the total all-in cost of providing or purchasing a site inside City limits.
No matter what additional sites are opened for this purpose, most would agree that the location needs to be a managed site and cannot be “low barrier” when it comes to drug and alcohol use. We have proven without any doubt that unmanaged sites don’t work, and there is no state law that requires these locations to be “low barrier” in terms of drug use. Even MINT’s current and proposed site is not low barrier in this regard, despite newly elected officials saying otherwise. The City must act quickly to avoid the recent lawsuit ruling becoming more permanent, and another special meeting may need to be scheduled later this week for the official City Council decision.
Josephine County Commissioners have at least two big battles brewing this week, both related to the Josephine Community Library District. The three newly elected and appointed County Commissioners will need to decide what’s more important to them, continuing the attack on the Library District as former Commissioner John West wants them to do, or follow the law and honor the Josephine County Charter.
On Tuesday at 1:30pm in the BCC Conference Room, there will finally be a meeting between the Commissioners and the Library District representatives related to the BCC’s recent action to cancel the Library’s lease for the Grants Pass library branch building next to the County Courthouse. A large protest was quickly organized by Library supporters in front of the courthouse last month shortly after recalled Commissioner West convinced the two newly elected commissioners to cancel the Library’s $1 per year lease in his last BCC meeting before the recall election results were certified and West was forced out of office by Josephine County voters. The BCC voted to cancel the lease with only 30 days’ notice, but that 30-day period has already passed, and library representatives say they never received the official cancellation notice. The County was very slow to respond to the Library attorney’s multiple requests to meet regarding this cancellation.
Former Commissioner West made the ridiculous case in his last BCC meeting that the County Charter provision requirement to support the Library is no longer valid and that the County should charge $15,000 per month for the rental of that building. Josephine County’s Charter, section 14.5 states “The Board shall provide for the support and maintenance of the main library and library branches.” The Library District representatives and Library supporters all believe this Charter provision is still as valid as it was when it first approved by County voters in the early 1990s, considering the Library District still serves all of Josephine County residents either through being part of the District or by the purchase of a Library Card.
Former Commissioner West’s various attacks on the Library District also failed to consider that part of the County’s permanent property tax rate is due to a rate that was originally supposed to support the library system and failed to recognize the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the library nonprofit and library district has invested in maintaining and upgrading the Grants Pass branch since the County cut off all operational funding for libraries in 2007. The library nonprofit that reopened County libraries and then the Library District that was approved by voters in 2017 have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Grants Pass branch building. And since 2007, over $40 million of property tax revenues that were originally earmarked for the libraries have been diverted to support other County operations such as law enforcement.
West tried to make the case that the building maintenance is costing the County close to $25k per year and that the building needs an emergency roof repair to the tune of about $100k in total cost because of a leaky roof. Except those are estimated maintenance costs not based on real costs and the roof has had minor leaking issues for at least 15 years without any recent mention of these issues by Josephine County officials. Another rally/protest is being held by library supporters at the courthouse this Tuesday afternoon, and given the BCC conference room only has seating for about 15 people, the commissioners would be wise to move this Tuesday meeting to the Anne Basker to allow for much more public participation.
Library representatives have stated that the Josephine Community Library District has taken great care in the maintenance of the interior of this County owned building and is planning to build a new branch in downtown Grants Pass in a few years. The least the County can do is continue the $1 per year lease on the Grants Pass branch for several years to come in order to honor the requirements of the County Charter and to recognize the significant amount of revenue that the County diverted to other County services since 2007. The now-independently operated library system in Josephine County has invested hundreds of thousands to properly maintain this county owned building and the County and Library District can potentially partner to fix the roof and HVAC systems if the $1 per year lease is maintained. This great $1 lease partnership has greatly benefited both parties and should continue for many years to come until the new Grants Pass branch building is built.
Following the Tuesday battle is likely another battle related to the Josephine Community Library District in the County Commissioner’s Wednesday Weekly Business Session at 9am. Part of former Commissioner West’s attacks on the Library District included illegally approving a district withdrawal petition from political ally Mike Pelfrey. Other withdrawal petitions for other of West’s political allies were quickly added to the County’s agenda after the first withdrawal was illegally approved in late 2023, but a lawsuit from the Library District stopped the County from acting on other withdrawal petitions. The County was also forced to settle the suit in favor of the Library District and admitted that the County erred in both process and the decision to approve the withdrawal.
Now Mike Pelfrey is back with a new Library District withdrawal petition done under the new procedures and paperwork. The BCC was supposed to have this withdrawal petition on the agenda for a decision in a recent weekly business session, and due to requirements to act on this petition it will likely be on the agenda this Wednesday.
The Pelfreys as property owners in the Library District haven’t necessarily done anything wrong in terms of submitting the petition. It was County Commissioners West and Baertschiger that illegally approved the withdrawal petition in a controversial two to one vote of the commissioners. Because state law says that “The petition shall be denied if it appears that it is, or would be, feasible for the territory described in the petition to receive service from the district.” That part of state law was ignored in the Commissioners’ previous decision.
Now the newly elected and appointed commissioners get to make this decision all over again. And once again, the Pelfreys or anyone else that owns and lives on a property inside district boundaries won’t be able to legally make the case that their property cannot receive service from the district. And like last time, if the Commissioners approve the withdrawal they will incur another lawsuit and will be battling the local library district and representatives of many special districts throughout the state which also have a stake in this decision.
Current County Commissioners, all three political allies of recalled County Commissioner John West, have some important decisions to make this week. It’s a choice between following the costly and arguably illegal advice of former County Commissioner John West or follow the law and honor the Josephine County Charter.
