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.