Opposed to New Ward Boundaries (Especially Minty Acres Neighbors)

[Nance WDOG]

I am adamantly opposed to any portion of the Minty Acres neighborhood being moved out of Ward 3.  This neighborhood’s issues are South Corvallis issues. Not downtown.  We elected Hyatt Lytle to represent us on the City Council, not Charles Maughan.  Additionally, looking more closely at the proposed maps, it appears Councilor Maughan would be gerrymandered out of his own Ward 2.  This is unacceptable.

If a petition against these changes and signed by the residents of Minty Acres is needed, I will happily canvas the neighborhood.  

Public participation in these types of decisions has effectively been shut down. The only reason any of us learned about this is because our Ward 3 Councilor shared it with us.  

The City Council agendas need to be made available to Corvallis residents before each meeting. We should not have to search the City of Corvallis website for the Agenda, only to find it is too late to testify or send an email to the Mayor & Council.  City Manager Shepard has quietly managed to quell Citizen input at every level.

Corvallis has a Public Information Officer who is not communicating with the citizens of this community. Serious changes need to be made.

Nance Kiesling

885 SE Bridgeway

Hello All,

I apologize for getting this out the night before the Work Session, however, there is still time before final approval which I believe will be at the June 21st meeting. These Ward Boundaries are from the most current iteration, as it has been a very last minute process, there were several logistical issues that led to this coming to the Council so late, however, alas, these are the "finalized" options which Council has been presented with.

One of the largest challenges faced with this Census and drawing boundaries for this decade is that there was a historical first of immense reporting from the OSU campus in Ward 4 (thousands of reported residents over other wards), which has required the surrounding Wards to expand dramatically, in order to balance each Ward as equally as possible.

However, nonetheless, the most recent options presented in the packet give Council five different Ward Boundaries to review. Please feel free to look at the Staff Memo at the following link: (https://archives.corvallisoregon.gov/public/ElectronicFile.aspx?dbid=0&docid=2913003).

I wanted to bring this to your attention, as I can see the community having significant concerns with the 3rd option for the Ward Boundary Map for Ward 3 on Figure 3, on Electronic page 7 and close-up on Electronic page 8, as the lines drawn would essentially put all of Minty Acres into Ward 2. 

As you can see below, everything North of Atwood on the East side of 99W would be incorporated into Ward 2. I can understand concerns, as historically, these neighborhoods have been represented in Ward 3, share Ward 3 issues and I believe that this would dissect some of the Minty Acres Neighborhood itself? As your Councilor, I will strive to keep neighborhood and neighborhood groups representation whole. There is also a lot of work being done by community members on the Mill Race in Ward 3, and bisecting the Race and all of that work across 2 Wards I can see being an issue with the community members that have put so much hard work, including passion, blood, sweat and tears into. 

The rest of the options keep Ward 3 intact. However, they are notable for review, as Ward 2 takes dramatic change in all the options, in order to do that balancing act for Ward 4. Option 5 for the Ward 4 Boundary Map on Figure #5 would have all of Downtown be included in Ward 4, as opposed to Ward 2, as it has been for much of recent history, which would be quite a significant change. 

I am most keen to Option 2, as it seems to have the most subtle changes, per the significant imbalance Ward 4 has given us to work with. 

So please, let me know your comments regarding the Ward Boundaries in general, the link to the packet is above. I am happy to hear anything before tomorrow's 4pm Work Session which I can use for discussion, but we do have until the 21st for me to voice anyone's concerns. 

Hyatt

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Hyatt Lytle, M.A. 

Corvallis City Councilor Ward 3

541-760-6274 (call or text)

[Mark Taratoot]

I will help collect signatures. 

Splitting Minty out of the rest of our neighborhood makes no sense. We have a community here. Dividing a community seems counter to what we should be doing. 

Good thing there are other options that do not divide us. 

Sent from my iPad

On Jun 8, 2022, at 23:54, Nance WDOG <nanc...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am adamantly opposed to any portion of the Minty Acres neighborhood being moved out of Ward 3.  This neighborhood’s issues are South Corvallis issues. Not downtown.  We elected Hyatt Lytle to represent us on the City Council, not Charles Maughan.  Additionally, looking more closely at the proposed maps, it appears Councilor Maughan would be gerrymandered out of his own Ward 2.  This is unacceptable.

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[Rebecka Weinsteiger]

Hi all,  I remember when my neighborhood and the other west-side neighborhoods (Cummings, Twin Oaks) of 99 were cut out of Ward 3.  I was disappointed, and angry.  To me it seemed as though that was the easiest route because there would be less resistance from the west side, its geographically disconnected, more transient (lots of students in the Tunison Neighorhood), historically low-income.  That was maybe 7 years ago or so? I don't recall. 

Anyway, I just thought I would throw my thoughts into the conversations.  Having been "bumped" to Ward 2 - didn't have a discernible impact for me.  My neighborhood issues were Southtown issues, and I ended up having 2 councilors that shared my lived experience (at least recently with Councilor Maughn), to hear my thoughts and concerns.  I get that I only can vote for one, but I can influence and advocate community-wide.

While it is great to have a councilor that is responsible and accountable to us geographically, very little gets done with one councilor alone.  Many of the most important issues are not just South Corvallis, they are Corvallis issues and need full council support to move the dial. 

All that being said, I totally get it. I am with you in finding the best solution for Southtown.

[Nance Kiesling]

Thank you for forwarding Patrick Rollens response to your/our concerns.  

I just watched the City Council Work Session and discussion regarding the Ward Boundary changes.  Four of the Councilors mentioned lack of a public hearing but there was no time before a decision must be made.  The Mayor had the audacity to say, on the record, that a public hearing would only bring out the naysayers/complainers and they wouldn't hear from the people who are "mellow with it".

City Manager Shepard's comments regarding future thinking and ignoring the historical were objectionable.  Residents should be happy having anyone represent them.. It doesn't matter who it is.  To that point - Why do we have elections and specifically vote for our chosen representative?  Mayor Traber seemed to purposely forget and misspeak when referring to "Minty Acres" neighborhood.  There was much more Council discussion but on the positive side, Option #3 was rejected and our South Corvallis neighborhood will not be divided into two Wards.  The City Council has opted to consider #4 and #5.  A vote will be taken at the next City Council meeting on June 21.

As to the posting and publishing of the City Council Agenda when it is available, Patrick Rollens did not address the basic request for it to be posted publicly. It is 2022 and there are various forms types of Social Media that can be used.  Four of them are listed in his signature block.  He suggested ways to sign up to receive more emails and directed to the City of Corvallis website.  If more people in the community were aware of what was happy at the local government level, there may be more citizen involvement. (We wouldn't want that to happen!)  I further note that when Patrick Rollens responded to your email it also included City Manager Shepard and the new City Recorder Alex Downing.

If I sound like I am disenchanted with our current City Manager and his hand-picked Department Heads, I most certainly am. 

~Nance

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From: "Gerry Frank" <gerrys...@gmail.com>
To: "nancewdog" <nanc...@gmail.com>
Cc: "Hyatt Lylte" <hyattly...@gmail.com>, north-s...@googlegroups.com, "south corvallis google groups" <south-c...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2022 4:07:38 PM
Subject: Re: Opposed to New Ward Boundaries (Especially Minty Acres Neighbors)

Nance and all, I would like to share the response I received from Patrick Rollens, Corvallis's Public Information Officer.

    See below

Rollens, Patrick <Patrick...@corvallisoregon.gov>	10:39 AM (5 hours ago)
to me, Mark, Alex

Hi Mr. Frank,

 

You can sign up to receive an email notification about City Council meeting agendas by subscribing online at www.corvallisoregon.gov/subscribe. Meeting materials are also posted on the city website calendar about 5 days before each meeting. The calendar is available here: www.corvallisoregon.gov/calendar

Lastly, you can review a printed copy of the agenda + meeting packet at the downtown library. It is available by Thursday the week before each Council meeting.

 

I appreciate your comments about the ward boundary process. We examine policy decisions closely to match them with the appropriate public process. In the case of the ward boundary update, the Council determined that this was a largely administrative task that is narrowly defined in our city charter. Based on the guidelines laid out in the charter, there are really only a few viable options to accomplish the ward boundary update process. That is why you did not see a broad request for public participation in the ward boundary update process. You can imagine how challenging it would be if we tried to incorporate individual requests from neighborhoods or even single households into this citywide process.

 

Again, I encourage you to sign up for email notifications so that you can get an email about upcoming Council business. That is the best way to stay engaged & informed about issues coming before the Council.

 

Sincerely,

 

Patrick W. Rollens

City of Corvallis | Public Information Officer

o: 541-766-6368

c: 541-452-1904

 

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