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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 23, 2016)
SINCE 1979 • VOLUME 38, NO. 41 SECTION A SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 $1.00 ‘I can’t find fault’ Council gives thumbs up to apartments at cow pasture By ERIC A. HOWALD Of the Keizertimes Members of the Keizer City Council paid a lot of lip ser- vice to the hours of testimony and reams of paper submitted to city offi cials opposing a re- zone of the area known as “the cow pasture” but, in the end, councilors granted the owners’ petition. While the council will still have to approve an ordinance completing the process, the decision Monday, Sept. 19, paves the way for the con- struction of up to 112 apart- ments. The council’s decision was unanimous. “It’s very different sitting on the council and being part of the audience. I found many of the letters we received com- pelling if not persuading,” said Councilor Mark Caillier. “The emotional side of me says one thing, and the quasi-judicial nature of this says another.” Councilors were acting as a quasi-judicial body in mak- ing the determination, which meant meeting criteria nec- essary for rezoning was the standard by which the appli- cation had to be judged. In explaining the city staff ’s recommendation to accept the rezoning, Nate Brown, Keizer’s community development director, said that he and others in the planning department had to rely on adopted standards in regard to traffi c and school impacts even when “common sense” would suggest drawing another conclusion. Councilor Roland Her- rera said he often thought of Please see PASTURE, Page A7 File The long-standing farmhouse on Verda will either be moved through local efforts or razed to make room for apartments. Conditions allow for move of farmhouse By ERIC A. HOWALD Of the Keizertimes The Keizer City Coun- cil approved a request to re- zone the property known as “the cow pasture” and paved the way for a new apartment complex, but the approval is not without its conditions. The most eye-catching is that developers will need to allow up to a year-and- a-half for someone to step forward and complete a project moving the “his- torically signifi - cant” farmhouse on the site. The clock starts ticking when the council approves an ordinance granting the zone change at an up- coming meeting. Anyone with a plan to move the house will have six months to ap- proach the city with their proposal to preserve and Oral history project needs new host PAGE A2 Fire damages garage PAGE A3 Please see CONDITIONS, Page A7 HOA lawsuit rachets up File Khrizma Kuhn, 34, is at the center of a lawsuit against the McNary Estates Homeowners Association. By ERIC A. HOWALD Of the Keizertimes A lawsuit fi led against the McNary Estates Homeowners Association (HOA) citing vio- lation of state and federal fair housing laws has escalated to a new level. The HOA refused to pro- vide accommodations for a family with a disabled daugh- ter in 2015 and it eventually ended with the family selling their home and moving away after almost a decade of own- ership. The woman, Khrizma Kuhn, and her parents, Renee and Gary, fi led a lawsuit against several parties in relation to disagreements in January 2015. Now lawyers for the Kuhn family are asking for a partial summary judgement on the facts of the case. “We feel the law is crystal clear in this case and we’re ask- ing a judge to make a determi- nation that the law was violat- ed,” said Kuhn attorney Dennis Steinman. In April 2015, the Kuhn family requested a waiver from the HOA to park an RV in their driveway. Doing so without a waiver violated McNary Es- tates HOA rules. Khrizma, 34, suffers from Down syndrome, autism and other maladies that require access to a bathroom and a shower even on short trips. The Kuhns presented the HOA board with letters from two doctors citing the medical necessity, but the request was denied and the family later met “ We feel the law is crystal clear in this case and we’re asking a judge to make a determination that the law was violated.” — Dennis Steinman, Attorney for Kuhn Family with hostility from neighbors. When one neighbor claimed her view of the street was obstructed as she tried to pull out of her driveway, Re- nee purchased a parabolic mir- ror for her to install at the edge of her property. The neighbor declined to use it. Another neighbor shoved Gary twice outside his home as the situation unraveled. Yet an- other began sitting outside her home monitoring the family’s activity. “She had a chair and a note- pad and did it for days,” Gary said in an interview earlier this year. “She was trying to log our behavior.” The HOA did suggest alter- natives such as parking the RV offsite or a van with a chemi- cal toilet, but neither fully ad- dressed the situation. The van would have lacked a shower. Parking it offsite would have left Renee without transporta- tion as the Kuhns had to sell one of their vehicles to pay for the RV. Gary used the family’s other car for commuting to and from work. The summary judgement request was fi led in district court in Eugene. Teresa Girod, the president of the HOA, is also listed as an individual de- fendant. Should a judge rule in fa- vor of the Kuhn family, a jury could be assembled to deter- mine damages, but Steinman said most cases are settled after summary judgements are is- sued. MHS drama line -up PAGE A5 Please see LAWSUIT, Page A7 Keizer Chamber seeking to reignite holiday parade By ERIC A. HOWALD Of the Keizertimes The Keizer Chamber of Commerce is picking up the torch of the holiday lights parade. “The chamber has gotten a lot of calls since it was announced that the holiday parade was ending and we sat down with the board a couple of weeks ago and had a long discussion about whether or not we wanted to take it on. In the end, we decided to do it,” said Scott White, president of the Keizer Chamber of Commerce board of directors. The Keizer Holiday Lights Parade sponsored by the Keizer Chamber of Commerce and the City of Keizer already has a date – Saturday, Dec. 10 – but organizers are now scrambling to bring everything else into alignment. At the top of the list for the event is engaging businesses along River Road North. White said several local business owners are already planning to use their parking lots to reach out to customers, but more are welcome. “We are assembling a team to blanket River Road businesses to try and get them engaged File Please see PARADE, Page A7 The Keizer Chamber of Commerce is planning to resurrect a holiday light parade on River Road. One giant of a Celt PAGE A8
