4A ❚ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2020 ❚ APPEAL TRIBUNE
Stayton, Detroit voters have tough choices
Bill Poehler
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
The path to accomplish one local
measure is much more difficult than the
other.
Stayton and Detroit voters are being
asked to pass local measures in the May
19 primary election, an increase in prop-
erty tax in Stayton and residency re-
quirements for city councilors in Detroit.
Stayton operations levy
In the past two decades, voters in
Stayton have passed six levies to help
fund the operations at Stayton Public Li-
brary, Stayton Family Memorial Pool
and in local parks.
The voters are being asked to pass an
increase in the tax rate to 70 cents per
$1,000 of assessed value on homes in
the city and extend the levy another five
years.
But the Stayton library and pool are
currently closed due to the COVID-19
pandemic. Though city parks are open,
the playground equipment in them are
closed.
“The unfortunate thing for us, this is a
levy that needs to be renewed every four
years and this time we’re asking for five
just to make it a little longer,” Stayton
City Manager Keith Campbell said.
“We’re dealing with unfortunate timing
of it coming with COVID-19.”
Like all Oregon cities, Stayton’s tax
rate is capped by Measure 5 and Mea-
sure 50.
Stayton first passed a option levy to
support the library, pool and parks in
1998 and since then, additional levies
have been passed in 2002, 2004, 2008,
2012 and 2016 to extend the funding.
The assessed rate on homes in Stay-
ton currently is 60 cents per $1,000.
“This really is a supplemental sup-
port,” Campbell said.
The increase to 70 cents per $1,000
would fund deferred maintenance at
Stayton Family Memorial Pool.
The levy would raise approximately
$425,000 the first year and increase to
$479,000 in the 2025-2026 fiscal year
and bring in a total of $2.26 million.
The median assessed value for homes
in Stayton is $178,395. If the levy passes,
the average homeowner would see an
increase of about $10 per month.
“Basically the increase is the idea,
one, we want a little more to go to parks,”
Campbell said. “Our library is in pretty
good shape maintenance wise, our pool
is not. The maintenance is required for
pools. We’ve been working a lot on the
library, new roof, gutters, dry rot.”
Approximately 45% of the funding
would go to maintain operations of the
library, 45% would go toward the pool
and 10% would go to maintenance of
parks.
Farmer
Convergence of Santiam River
prone to flooding
Corn Festival, and it was more popular
than anyone expected.
“They called me and said the people
over there are going crazy about it,” Case
said.
When the flood of 1996 hit, Case
learned how vulnerable his new farm
was to flooding.
He said one dike that was on the land
since the 1950s was washed out in the
flood and the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers rebuilt it with dirt and rocks he
gave them.
Another flood in 2004 created a
channel through the land and connect-
ed the North Santiam River with the
South Santiam River, washed out a por-
tion of the bank on the North Santiam
River was and many trees and native
plants washed away.
After the flood of 2008, Case decided
he needed to do something to protect
the farm from the inevitable waters.
He said he consulted with staff from
the Corps of Engineers and the Depart-
ment of State Lands about solutions,
and what they came up with was build-
ing a rock wall on his property away
from the river to serve as a dike in times
of high water.
He said he was told it was a gray area
as the work would take place on his
property and away from the body of wa-
ter.
Case, however, didn’t get anything in
writing from those consultations and
never applied for Clean Water Act per-
mits from the EPA for the work.
Based on his conversations, he spent
about $100,000 to construct an 800-
foot-long, 15-feet high wall of rock to
serve as a dike to protect his farm fields
against floods in 2009.
It worked as intended.
Case said in the flooding of 2019, the
river never crested over into the fields.
“If we took out them dikes, it could
wash that whole damn field eventually,”
he said. “It would just keep washing.
The North Santiam would wash right
over into the South Santiam River.”
The fight against the EPA
Since the wall went up, however,
Case has been locked in a fight with the
EPA.
The EPA has contended Case’s con-
struction of the rock wall was a violation
of the Clean Water Act, which prohibits
discharging of pollutants into navigable
waters including the banks of water
bodies up to the high-water mark.
Portions of Case’s farm are at or be-
low the high-water mark.
According to court documents, the
Corps of Engineers sent him a cease and
desist order in 2010, stating the dis-
charge of material below the high-water
mark was a violation of the Clean Water
Act.
The EPA alleged Case filled in a wet-
land approximately 823 feet long in 2012
and filled another wetland with gravel in
2013.
The EPA says he contoured the river
bank by dredging an 835-foot-long
trench, deposited native materials into
the trench to create an armored bank
and in so doing dumped approximately
4,039 cubic yards of material into the
river.
Case says that dike had been built in
Primary
5th District primary
Continued from Page 1A
Mark Gamba
searching cures for cancer, that could be
working on green energy solutions, but
they’re flipping burgers because they
have to pay their rent,” Reynolds said.
“There’s 330 million people in Amer-
ica. Imagine all that mind power going
into outer space. But instead they show
up to a software company that they
have to encrypt. We need to start think-
ing on a species level at some point.
What are we doing as humanity?”
Kurt Schrader
Though the district of over 700,000
has a wide base of Republicans, Demo-
crats have held the seat since 1997, first
Darlene Hooley until 2009 and Schrader
since.
A member of the blue-dog caucus of
moderates in Congress, Schrader is
largely viewed as a moderate Democrat,
which he says lets him better represent
the district’s constituents.
“I’ve had other folks ask me, 'Geez,
Oregon’s such a blue state, how can you
do this?' Oregon is not very blue. Port-
land is blue. Eugene is very blue. Ash-
land is very blue. My district is not,”
Schrader said.
“If I can make sure I represent all
those people, I think I can do a very good
job. I’ve actually got to tailor my re-
Many homeowners in Detroit don’t
live there year-round.
The city’s voters are being asked to
amend the city charter to loosen resi-
dency requirements for city councilors.
Currently, five of the seven city coun-
cilors must live in the city over six
months each year in the vacation hot
spot. If the measure passes, four of the
seven city councilors will be required to
live in the city over six months out of the
year.
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or
Twitter.com/bpoehler
A settlement, but not the end
Farmer Bill Case drives along the road the EPA is requesting he remove on his
property, in Albany on April 21, 2020. MADELEINE COOK / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Building the dike
The area in south Marion and north
Linn Counties where the North and
South Santiam rivers converge before
feeding into the Willamette River fre-
quently floods.
Many roads in the area are so fre-
quently inundated they have perma-
nent swinging gates as they so fre-
quently require being blocked off.
The North Santiam River has been
designated critical habitat for Upper
Willamette River Chinook salmon and
steelhead under the Endangered Spe-
cies Act and essential habitat for Coho
salmon and is protected.
Case purchased farm land on the
banks of the North Santiam River in
1994.
Beyond the 400-acre farm near Jef-
ferson, Case owns about 1,200 acres in
the area and farms about 2,000 acres in-
cluding other land he rents.
Bill Case Farms employs about 90
people in the peak of harvest season.
His fertile land has produced grass
seed, squash, pumpkins and beans over
the years, but Case said he now he
mainly farms sweet corn.
If you’ve purchased fresh corn at a
Safeway, Fred Meyer or WinCo in the
past few years, it may have been grown
at Case’s farm.
And Case regularly donates excess
crops to local food banks.
Last year was the first time his corn
was served at the annual Aumsville
Detroit residency requirements
1950, long before he purchased the
property in 1994.
“They want me to remove that, too,
and let all that water flood my field,”
Case said.
The EPA also says the construction of
the 1000-foot rock wall blocked five side
channels of the North Santiam River
and deposited another 16,772 yards of
material below the regular high-water
mark of the river.
“I didn’t discharge any dirt into the
river,” Case said. “When the 2008 flood
changed channels and it went through
my field, it washed some dirt down into
the field, but I don’t know how much.”
Continued from Page 1A
the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency.
Case and the EPA reached a settle-
ment where he would pay $100,000, re-
move the rock wall and another 70-
year-old dike on the farm that predates
his ownership of the land and restore
the banks of the North Santiam River
with native vegetation.
Though he signed the pact with the
government, Case said he plans to keep
fighting, even if the fight costs him hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars.
“I wake up every night thinking about
this crap,” Case said.
EPA spokesperson Mark MacIntyre
said the EPA and U.S. Department of
Justice, which prosecuted the case, are
limited in what they can say about it un-
til it is approved by a federal judge.
If this levy fails, the city would have to
make major cuts.
“Internally what I’ll say is we have
concerns of whether the library and the
pool could still function or function at
just basic levels,” Campbell said.
Age: 61.
Work: Intern in news department at
Stanford University, quality assurance
for video game companies, six years in
National Guard, bartender and owner of
Hale Pele and BG Reynolds line of cock-
tail syrups.
Home: Milwaukie.
Public service: None.
Family: Partner Kendra, son Forrest,
daughters Makena and Summer.
Campaign cash on hand: $2,279 as of
April 23.
Education: Associate of Applied Sci-
ence, Photography, Colorado Mountain
College.
Campaign contact: blair@reynoldsfor.us
Party: Democrat.
Gamba
Reynolds
Schrader
sponses to the district and based on
what is best for hearing from the folks. I
know I’ve been one of the most effective
leaders there.”
Schrader said he has been impressed
with how fast Congress acted to pass
the CARES Act to combat the coronavi-
rus pandemic.
But he said the situation has made it
clear that everyone needs access to uni-
versal health care.
Schrader said he wants to improve
access to career and technical educa-
tion to better support the trades. He said
when some people come out of the pan-
demic they will be looking at education-
al options for the next few years.
He said climate change is an impor-
tant part of his goals for another term.
He intends to do that by making sure the
energy source, be it solar or coal, is at or
near zero emissions.
“I think it’s really important to get af-
ter the climate change piece,” Schrader
said.
Contact the reporter at bpoeh-
ler@StatesmanJournal.com or Twit-
ter.com/bpoehler
After years of fighting in district
court, Case and the EPA arrived at a set-
tlement a few weeks ago.
In a release announcing the settle-
ment, the EPA says the agreement in-
cludes complete restoration of the sites
of both dikes and revegetation of the
areas, reconnecting the downstream
end of the river by a new channel
formed in a flood and discontinuing use
and replanting an area designated as
sloughs and wetlands.
He also is to purchase an adjacent
parcel of land and plant it with native
species.
“I’m keeping fighting because I had to
sign that thing,” Case said. “I had to go to
Portland to court for two days. The only
way I could get out of that damn meet-
ing was to agree. They wanted
$450,000 to start with.”
Case fears if he removes the dikes, a
grove of about 50 large trees will be
washed into the river at a popular spot
where people float along the North San-
tiam River each summer.
Case said he has already spent
$300,000 fighting the case.
He said the EPA wants him to move
the dikes 18 feet farther from the river,
which he estimates will cost another
$100,000.
“I’m going to have $680,000 in this
when this is done,” he said. “And it’s all
because the river changed channel in
2008.”
MacIntyre said the EPA will accept
public comments about the proposed
settlement that runs through May 18 be-
fore a federal judge approves it.
Comments about the proposed set-
tlement can be sent to Kent E. Hanson of
the Department of Justice at PO Box
7611, Washington, D.C., 20044.
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or
Twitter.com/bpoehler
Work: Photojournalist for clients like
National Geographic, Adidas, Nike, and
Carhartt.
Public service: Wilsonville mayor since
2015, on the Wilsonville city council
since 2012.
Campaign cash on hand: $17,956 as of
April 23.
Campaign contact: Jaime Mathis, com-
munications director, jaime@mark-
gamba.com
Blair Reynolds
Party: Democrat.
Age: 40.
Home: Portland.
Kurt Schrader
Party: Democrat.
Age: 68.
Home: Canby.
Family: Wife Susan, and eight children.
Education: Bachelor's degree from
Cornell University in 1973; bachelor's
degree from University of Illinois 1975;
doctor of veterinary medicine in 1977
from University of Illinois.
Work: Veterinarian, small businessman,
farmer.
Public service: 5th District seat since
2009; Oregon Senate, 2003-09; Oregon
House, 1997-2003; Canby Planning
Commission, 1981-96.
Family: Wife Sara, three children.
Campaign cash on hand: $3,092,590 as
of April 23.
Education: Associate Degree in Liberal
Arts from San Jose Junior College.
Campaign contact: (503) 723-6174 or
campaign@kurtschrader.com