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About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 2018)
T he C olumbia P ress March 23, 2018 3 Forest Rim development set to expand The Columbia Press A project to expand the Forest Rim development east of Costco, adding an additional 74 houses, is in the works. The Warrenton Planning Com- mission approved plans March 15 for a new road to the proj- ect that would run between the sheriff’s office and the former Oregon Youth Authority facility. It would provide a shortcut to the new subdivision and already occupied portions of Forest Rim. There is about half an acre of Paid Advertisement wetlands that would be filled to make way for the road, which required a “hardship variance” from the city. The new subdivision is in an area slated for an aluminum smelting plant in the 1960s. But after the land was cleared, the company went bankrupt, said Steve Fulton, who was represent- ing Warrenton Fiber, the current property owner, and North River Homes, the developer. “This has been a two-year pro- cess,” Fulton said of the project’s lengthy negotiations with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Paid Advertisement the Division of State Lands, Clatsop County and the city. “We have an agreement with Clatsop County to buy the easement for this road.” Warrenton’s development code allows variances from building restrictions in protected wet- lands areas when builders can prove it’s in the best interest of the city and its residents. Chief among them is that the new road will provide a second access to the area in case of fire. “There are six primary crite- ria in the code for dealing with a variance and the applicant met Paid Advertisement SE 19th St New street B y C indy y ingst Ensign Ln New subdivision Honeysuckle Willow Dr Salal Loop each of the six,” Planning without any (additional) Director Skip Urling told conditions.” The road variance was planning commissioners. “I recommend approval approved unanimously. Paid Advertisement Paid Advertisement What Is the Warrenton City Commission Hiding From The Voters? The City of Warrenton spent over $120,000 to investigate misconduct by the Columbia Riv- er Estuary Task Force (CREST), an environmental engineering company, and the Skipanon Wa- ter Control District regarding the 8th Street Flood Control Struc- ture. However, they are not will- ing to make the results public. Historically, the Warrenton City Commission has been unwilling to say anything meaningful pub- licly about the 8th street flood control structure, which indi- cates they’re not proud of what happened in the past. I’ll be sur- prised if they make any mean- ingful public statement about the information I’m providing here. I see no legal reason Warren- ton City Commissioners won’t make a public statement about this subject. If I’m allowed to know it, then all residents should be allowed to know it. I’m relay- ing this information as a public service. It appears there are peo- ple working behind the scenes to not be honest or transparent with the public. I have reviewed over 500 pag- es of documents personally, and conclude the City is hiding this information from the public be- cause it identifies potential con- flicts of interest and wrongdoing done by City Commission mem- bers and high level city employ- ees. A quick summary of some of these documents: •At least 4 independent engi- neering reports identified a flood- ing risk or risk of flooding to prop- erty owners if the 8th Street flood control tide gates or structure were removed (these tide gates were removed without any permit around November 2015). • The City Manager at the time was responsible for reviewing this project’s impacts for the City and was CREST’s Treasurer at the same time, with CREST standing to gain at least a $1.3 million con- tract if this project were approved by the City (a strong conflict of interest). • A private citizen made a Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) to the City of Warrenton requesting all e-mails containing the 8th Street Dam in its heading. • The City’s engineering con- sultant reviewed CREST’s and the District’s plans to remove the 8th Street flood control struc- ture and had flooding concerns regarding the adequacy of the groups’ engineering. It appears the City Manager at the time tried to discourage the City’s engineer consultant from disclosing this to the Commission and the public in an e-mail chain. This e-mail chain was supposed to be includ- ed in the FOIA, but was left out. • The FOIA was overseen by the City Manager at the time, along with the city recorder at that time (currently the Warren- ton City Manager), preparing or supervising the gathering of all information. It’s unknown how this chain of e-mails failed to be included. It appears to be a po- tential tampering with public re- cords, which is a civil and crimi- nal offense. • The current City Mayor per- sonally received private e-mail informational copies regarding the project from CREST and the district along with the for- mer city manager indicating the current City Mayor was person- ally receiving specific project documents from them. The oth- er Commissioners were not in- cluded in this e-mail chain, and the current City Mayor never recused himself and never told the public that he received this ex-parte contact during the City’s public review and discussion (a potential conflict of interest and what appears to be a non-disclo- sure of an ex-parte contact). Here’s questions and com- ments the commission should publicly respond to: 1. Why was the Commission willing to spend $120,000 in- vestigating CREST and the Ski- panon Water Control District, but not spend any money to protect the property owners adjacent to the Skipanon River within the city limits of Warrenton based on the flood protection that has histor- ically been in effect from 1963 until 2012? 2. Does the Commission be- lieve property owners along the Skipanon River will be exposed in the future to higher flood lev- els than happened in December 2015? 3. Did the Commission know that the Skipanon Water Control District had a legal charter and the state has administrative laws requiring them to provide flood control? 4. Why does the Commis- sion believe the Skipanon Wa- ter Control District can violate its charter while this Commission knows they cannot violate their city’s charter? I’m dissatisfied with the con- duct of the following areas of Warrenton City government: • None of the City Commis- sioners at the time recognized that the Skipanon Water Control District had a legal charter issued in the Clatsop County Court that did not allow them to remove ei- ther the 8th Street flood control tide gates or the complete struc- ture. I do not believe there should have ever been any discussion about taking either of these ac- tions unless the Skipanon Water Control District charter was le- gally amended to allow for this. • None of the City Commis- sioners recognized that the City Manager at the time was simul- taneously working as the Trea- surer of CREST, which would ap- pear to be a very strong conflict of interest. • The Commissioners rely too much on the City’s staff and legal advisors without having sufficient intellectual curiosity to look into details of why this controversy has gone on for so long with no mutually satisfacto- ry solution. • The lawyers responsible for providing the advice used during the discussions with CREST ap- pear to have failed to bring this information to the attention of the commission during or after these talks collapsed. • At some point, people who seek to be elected must rely on their own abilities to discover the real roots of a problem and not rely on the staff for answers and they must make their con- clusions very clear to the public they serve. • Current Commission- er Mark Baldwin was not on the commission during these CREST discussions. However, Commissioner Baldwin has seen the December 2015 flooding pic- tures and has been made aware of the history of this past contro- versy. Therefore, he needs to be part of dealing with this issue. I have the documents that I’ve used as justification for the questions and comments I’ve made. I can show the docu- ments to anyone who’d like to see them. Please mail your tele- phone number or e-mail address to Scott Widdicombe, PO Box 82, Warrenton OR 97146 and I’ll contact you to work out a time and place for you to view the documents for yourself.
