Good Afternoon ,
The City Council has scheduled an Oppenlander formal decision meeting for 6pm Tuesday 2/25 … THANK YOU CITY COUNCIL FOR RESPONDING TO THE CITIZENS!
This is progress, but please note that saving Oppenlander is far from a done deal.
Thank you to the several dozen of West Linn neighbors and families who attended the Rally at City Hall last night (KPTV video report here, West Linn Tidings article here.) Councilor Bonnington and a representative from ICON Construction were present and added to the discussion and Q&A. And to Ted N. for treating the kids to sodas afterwards.
IS THERE STILL TIME? … YES!!!
City Staff and City Council are still saying there is not enough time – but there is plenty of time, see below. They have known for at least a month that the current $3.5M bond would be insufficient to meet the District’s $7.875M price and 5/23 timeline, and for over a week that Friends of Oppenlander would not be able to fill the $4.875M unfunded payment gap in just the 120 days allowed by the School District.
We contend there is time, if they take timely action, and made this point clear at last Tuesday’s meeting.
FRIENDS OF OPPENLANDER COMMITMENT
- We are committed to championing the bond measure through to passage in May (like we did in 2022 by a 2:1 margin).
- Aggressive efforts to make this a win-win-win deal , i.e. the only real winner right now is the School District – we believe it is within their ethical values to acknowledge Oppenlander as park and the re-purchase by West Linn citizens is to keep it that way, not to price it as a full retail unused/unimproved parcel, and to their political/fiscal benefit to sit at the table for a collaborative conversation with the City, and representatives of the Community – and Friends of Oppenlander would be pleased to be that representative.
- Mending the relationships between the three parties – we need to be healthy, happy and working together to optimize the values and quality of life we so appreciate here in West Linn. We need to mean it when we wave and smile at each other as we encounter each other in the community.
- Supporting the fragile finances of the City and the citizens to balance what we want, what we need, and what we have the means for as we go forward. There are other anticipated upcoming expenses in West Linn besides a park bond.
A DOABLE TIMELINE
While these things are never as simple as they seem from the citizen’s viewpoint, it only took me 15 minutes to find and fill out the SEL 805 template due on 2/28 for the Ballot Title filing using the 2022 bond as an example (see prepared template here). Only 5 bits of text (highlighted in red) need to be adjusted by the City Manager and his legal team. In addition, we understand the attorneys need to confirm that layering this new bond on the current $3.5M bond is legal, a question we asked the city to address almost two weeks ago.
We continue to suggest City Staff (and Council) should ACT NOW:
- TODAY
- Use the attached template to informally identify exactly what needs to be done next week.
- Contact the Bond Attorneys to:
- Give them a heads up that we need their services next week to review a SEL 805 Ballot Measure Title filing
- Answer the layered bond question (if no, adjust the new bond numbers to $8.375M ($7.875M for purchase plus $500k for initial improvements), and adjust the text to say this bond supersedes the May 2022 $3.5M bond.)
- Pre-Schedule a follow on Council meeting for Wednesday to meeting notice requirements. The meeting proceeds if the Council formally authorizes the bond on Tuesday evening, otherwise this meeting is unnecessary and can be cancelled. A virtual single agenda item meeting without public comment meeting would be brief (15 minutes).
- MONDAY
- Get the answer about a layered bond from the Attorneys
- Finish/review the 5 simple changes on the SEL 508 with the Bond Attorney
- Send the SEL 805 to Council for their review prior to the Tuesday meeting
- TUESDAY
- Discussion and (hopefully) authorization to proceed vote by City Council at 6pm meeting
- WEDNESDAY
- Make any final adjustment on the SEL 805 based on Tuesday evening’s Council guidance
- Send the final document to Council for review
- Council meets briefly to formally accept the final document
- THURSDAY
- File SEL 805 with the County
- FRIDAY, 2/28 – the deadline
- No Oppenlander work scheduled – it was completed Thursday! … or a catch up day if anything moves a bit slower than expected.
This is how I would schedule out this project … looks very doable to me. Again, we acknowledge that this effort is undoubtably more complicated than highlighted above – but it is doable!
THE PRESSURE MUST BE KEPT ON THEM TO ACT QUICKLY and to formally make a YES to the ballot vote.
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WE CAN STILL SAVE OPPENLANDER WITH YOUR HELP! Preserve and extend Oppenlander’s 40+ year legacy of community park and youth development from being developed and adding up to resulting in up to 90 additional families in need of recreational resources, and the loss of a park for the entire community—forever!