DECEMBER 10, 2021, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A07
Commentary
Delays have consequences
In the past four months, the Keizer
City Council has worked to fi ll three
vacancies of paramount importance
in the community of Keizer.
The fi rst vacancy is Keizer’s next
permanent city manager. It’s been
eight months since Chris Eppley
resigned from the position on April 1
and interim City Manager Wes Hare
has served in the position since July.
An initial timeline by the Greg
Prothman Company, the agency
contracted to recruit for the role,
estimated that applications for the
position would close on Oct. 17 with
fi nal interviews taking place on Nov.
22 or 29.
At the Dec. 6 Keizer City Council
meeting, the council decided to con-
tinue accepting applications until at
least the middle of January — push-
ing the delay on the initial timeline to
three months.
The second vacancy is the manage-
ment of the Summer Concert Series at
the Keizer Rotary Amphitheater. KRA,
led by Clint Holland, has managed the
series for the past nine years. KRA’s
contract expired this summer and the
city began accepting proposals for
the management of the series until
at least 2025. The Keizer Chamber of
Commerce’s proposal was chosen over
Holland’s and the city began working
brainfood
Enter digits 1-9 into blank spaces. Every row must contain
one of each digit. So must every column, & every 3x3 square.
The editorial board
For months now, Holland has con-
tested the process. Holland says the city
sent the request for a proposal to the
wrong address, giving him a week less
time to fi ll it out than the Chamber. The
city has confi rmed that this is true.
But even as questions lingered about
the fairness of the process, the council
was still set to sign the contract with the
Chamber on Dec. 6.
After more than 30 minutes of public
comment, the council began debating
the issue. They spoke at length about
the grading criteria of the applications
— which was decided on almost fi ve
months ago. They discussed the fact
that each party had diff erent amounts
of time to fi nish the application — which
Holland has told the council for over two
months.
At one point, the council made the
impromptu decision to bring a local
musician to the microphone and ask
what his opinion was. The council then
contemplated an entirely new idea:
What if each group splits time manag-
ing the concert series? Both parties said
no, that wouldn’t work.
In the end, unable to make a decision,
the council decided to delay and restart
the process.
The issue isn’t debate, or the coun-
cil being thoughtful in their decision
making. It’s the fact that the council has
sudoku answers pg A9
sudoku
to fi nalize a contract.
At the Dec. 6 meeting, as council was
set to sign the contract, councilors opted
to restart the process and allow KRA
and the chamber to resubmit proposals.
The decision will most likely delay the
process by at least another month.
The third vacancy is the manage-
ment of the Keizer Little League Park.
A contract for the position was initially
scheduled to be signed during a Oct.
11 meeting. The contract wasn’t fi nal-
ized, so the decision was delayed until
Nov. 1. Councilors voted to once again
delay the decision at the Nov. 1 meeting,
before fi nally signing the contract at a
Nov. 15 meeting.
Delays in government are nothing
new. But the delays that have arisen
the past couple months in Keizer aren’t
because of bureaucracy or a lack of
information. Rather, they are because of
the council’s inability to make decisions
they were elected to make — or even
be informed enough to make a fi nal
decision.
Let’s take the Summer Concert Series
decision for instance. Proposals for the
management were submitted at the end
of August. The grading of the proposals
occurred in early September. The Keizer
Chamber of Commerce offi cially signed
the contract to become the managers of
the concert series on Nov. 5.
Photo by JOEY CAPPELLETTI of Keizertimes
maze by Jonathan Graf of Keizer
had the information in front of them for
months now and didn’t work to answer
these questions until the last min-
ute. With only two regular meetings a
month, the council's job is to do research
and talk to constituents outside of meet-
ings, and come to them ready to make a
decision.
But the lack of preparation has
occurred time and time again.
“I don't know why I just have this
feeling that we need to pause and do
this right,” Councilor Roland Herrera
said during a meeting where a contract
for KLL park was set to be signed. “I am
guilty of not following this as closely as
I should have. I had some medical issues
for like a year-and-a-half. I didn't follow
it until the last couple weeks.”
At the time, Keizer Baseball and
Softball President Michael Bays said
about Herrera’s comment, “I thought
that was disturbing. Public offi cials
should be able to do their job. If they
continue to drag this out, the kids are
going to be the ones who suff er.”
During the Dec. 6 meeting, Hare
advised the council to keep city man-
ager applications open until the middle
of January because only three viable
candidates had applied so far.
“The suggestion from the consultant
is to extend the review to the middle
of January. The reason for extending it
that long is that the holiday season is a
diffi cult time to recruit, you don’t gen-
erally get a lot of applications around
Christmas time,” said Hare.
The application process was sup-
posed to close in October, but delays
pushed it to the holiday season.
All three of the vacant positions,
one of which has been fi lled, will dra-
matically shape how the city of Keizer
looks for the next year, or decade. And
the continuous delays in decisions may
have lasting consequences. In the case
of the Summer Concert Series, bands
have already begun fi lling their sum-
mer schedules and the delays may sig-
nifi cantly infl uence the 2022 summer
lineup.
The community needs — and
deserves — a council that can provide
a clear directive for the entire city of
Keizer going forward. The current city
councilors are capable of providing this
direction but need to prove it going into
the new year.