A14
Blue Mountain Eagle
Weigum
Continued from Page A1
Why a recall?
Charlene Morris alleges that
Weigum, in her role as a mem-
ber of the John Day/Canyon City
Parks and Recreation District
board, violated Oregon Revised
Statutes 192.620-670 by com-
municating via email with fel-
low board members in drafting
the language for the pool bond
measure that appeared on the
May ballot. The statutes cover
Oregon meetings law pertaining
to regular meetings, executive
sessions, public notices, minutes,
the form of the agenda and meet-
ings conducted via telephone or
other electronic means.
While Oregon law allows
for public bodies such as the
parks and rec board to meet and
deliberate electronically, it also
requires that the public be able
to monitor that electronic com-
munication as it’s happening.
Jack Orchard, a Portland
attorney who specializes in
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
NEWS
public records and public meet-
ings law, told the Blue Mountain
Eagle for an earlier story that
any discussion of the language
for the pool bond should have
been held in a public meeting
that followed all the standard
procedures the law requires.
“The discussion of the bond
measure in any form was a pub-
lic meeting matter,” he said.
“It needed to be agendaed, dis-
cussed at an open session with
minutes kept. Notice of the
meeting was required in the
normal course and means.”
Orchard added that this is
especially true if a quorum of
board members was involved in
the email communications that
occurred in drafting the ballot
measure’s language.
Also alleged are violations
of ORS 192.314-335, which
cover access to public records
and the timely dissemination of
public records.
Morris also claims that
Weigum prepared an additional
notice of ballot title that was
published in the Blue Moun-
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tain Eagle in violation of ORS
260.532 and 260.537. Morris
said Weigum called herself the
“elections authority” and that
these actions were taken to mis-
lead voters and cause confusion.
In addition, Morris accused
Weigum of violating ORS
294.414, which covers the
appointment of a budget com-
mittee, pointing to Weigum’s
role as the JDCC Parks and
Recreation District’s budget
offi cer.
Morris said Weigum could
have taken steps to avoid a
recall.
“Lisa had two choices,”
Morris said. “She could resign
or make a statement, which I
have not seen.”
Morris said she understands
Weigum isn’t the chair of the
parks and recreation board but
said Weigum is the board mem-
ber she had the most communi-
cation with when the eff ort to
put the pool bond on the ballot
started. “I knew trying to recall
all fi ve of (the board members)
would not be successful,” Mor-
ris added.
Morris also alleges that
Weigum told her that “we have
to do better,” referring to the
parks and recreation board’s
eff orts to provide transparency
to the public, but failed to fol-
Loans
low through with any meaning-
ful actions.
Weigum, in her statement
of justifi cation in response to
Morris’ petition, characterized
the recall eff ort as a personal
vendetta.
“It is unfortunate that the
petitioner is insulting the dem-
ocratic process by wasting your
tax dollars on purposely mis-
informing the public, spread-
ing blatant lies, and worst of
all, continuing to create polar-
ization in our community all
because (she) just doesn’t like
me,” Weigum wrote.
Board chair backs
Weigum
Zach Williams, who chairs
the parks and recreation district
board, said Weigum was being
unfairly singled out by the recall
eff ort.
“It’s not like any of the
things Lisa is being accused of,
for one, are Lisa’s fault alone.
They’re all of our responsibil-
ity,” he said.
“And two, I think everyone
would fi nd if they get on a board
that you make these mistakes at
times,” he said.
Williams added that the
board’s actions had been sub-
jected to heightened scrutiny
because of the controversy sur-
HOW TO APPLY
Continued from Page A1
$57,450 for a family of four
(limits slightly higher in Wal-
lowa County).
• Home equity must be
greater than the value of out-
standing home loans plus cost
of loan-funded repairs.
• Home must be adequately
insured.
What makes the program
go is a revolving loan fund
built on federal grants awarded
by the Department of Hous-
ing and Urban Development,
program manager Kale Elmer
explained.
“We’ve got a pretty large
amount of loans out there right
now,” he said. “As those funds
get paid back, we can do more
loans.”
At the moment, he added,
the program has more than $2.3
To fi nd out more about
Community Connection’s
Housing Rehabilitation Loan
Program or to fi ll out a loan
application, visit https://
ccno.org/housing-rehabilita-
tion-loan-program/. To speak
with program manager Kale
Elmer, call 541-963-3186.
million in loans outstanding.
The fund balance for available
loans had dropped to less than
$250,000, but the account has
been recharged by the awarding
of a $400,000 grant applied for
by Grant County. The counties
in Community Connection’s
service area take turns apply-
ing for grants, with the money
available to any qualifi ed appli-
cant in Northeast Oregon.
“We have been running this
program for a number of years
across four counties, and we
rounding the proposal to build
a new community swimming
pool.
“In 15 years, until the pool
bond, not one person from the
public had ever shown up to a
parks and rec board meeting,
not one,” he said. “Nobody
cared because we were doing
good things, and that’s all
we’ve ever done.”
Williams pushed back
against the claim that Weigum
had tried to deceive voters.
“The additional notice of
ballot title to the Blue Moun-
tain Eagle was a mistake. It
was clearly not done to unfairly
mislead voters — it was what
she thought she was supposed
to do,” Williams added.
He also pushed back against
the budget complaint.
“(Morris) claims (Weigum)
broke fi nance law by not
appointing budget committee
members correctly, which is
not true,” he said.
“When I fi rst started, you
begged and pleaded for peo-
ple to show up so you can have
a budget committee meeting.
This isn’t a sought-after posi-
tion that people are lining up to
come get. … That’s the extent
to which (Morris) is claiming
Lisa broke budget law,” Wil-
liams said.
Williams said the recall eff ort
against Weigum fi ts within the
political dynamic that has been
apparent both locally and nation-
ally in recent years.
“Attack, attack, attack. The
feeling is that you’re trying to
stack these boards to their favor
somehow, but I don’t know what
that outcome is supposed to be,”
he said.
Weigum’s
supporters,
including Williams, are ada-
mant that recalling her from
the Parks and Rec board would
be a loss for the community as
a whole. “Lisa is a great parks
and rec board member,” Wil-
liams said. “She’s very commu-
nity-minded. She cares about
kids and programs and Seventh
Street.”
If people aren’t happy with
Weigum’s actions on the board,
Williams suggested, there
is a better way to handle the
situation.
“There is a time and a place
to change board members, and
they’re called elections,” he said.
“Somebody should run against
her. Someone should run against
us if they don’t like what we’re
doing.”
Williams added, “That’s the
way the process is supposed to
work. Recalls — there is a time
and a place, but this isn’t it.”
kind of cycle through,” Elmer
said. “Last time it was Union
County.”
The Home Rehabilitation
Loan Program has been run-
ning for decades and was orig-
inally operated by individ-
ual cities and counties around
Northeast Oregon before
Community Connection took
the reins some years back. The
program has 137 active loans
in its portfolio, and another
168 loans have been repaid.
“When I started, the oldest
loan we had was from 1980,”
Elmer said. “That loan was
paid back last year.”
While the program has
proven popular elsewhere, it
has been slow to catch on in
Grant County. According to
Elmer, of the nearly 140 home
rehabilitation loans currently
outstanding, only 11 are from
Grant.
“It’s been an uphill bat-
tle to get applicants,” he said.
“We get a lot of seniors, and we
fi nd they’ll be reluctant to take
a loan even though there’s no
payments and no interest.”
Many seniors worry about
leaving behind a loan that their
children will have to pay off
after they’re gone, but Elmer
noted that making repairs can
substantially increase the value
of an older home, making it
possible to repay the loan after
the home is sold or refi nanced.
“You need to take care of
it or you’re not really leaving
them anything,” he said.
Both Elmer and Myers are
hoping to broaden the pro-
gram’s acceptance in Grant
County.
“I don’t think we’ve done
a very good job of advertising
the benefi ts of it,” Myers said.
“It’s a pretty good program for
elderly, low-income and no-in-
come people.”
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CLUES DOWN
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stuck in
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sorceress
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17. “__ Humbug!”
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shelves
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and water
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or birds
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WORDS
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