Fire on or maybe around the Mary's Railroad Bridge early this morning

[Councilor Hyatt Lytle]

Hi All,

I am sure that many of you are already aware, but for those who were not this morning like myself, I wanted to make sure to get this info out there. 

I woke up to messages about this, and the only current source is FACEBOOK. But I found the below post that has pictures and video, so we know it happened. I emailed the City Manager to provide the Council with details and facts as soon as possible, so I can provide more of those to you. 

https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTE2MTgzNjE1MDM6MTAyMjQwMjk2ODA0ODI2NjU%3D

Hopefully, more info to come and please share if you have anymore than I do!

[Nance WDOG]

For those people who are not able to access Facebook. Here is a screenshot of the post and a comment from Ed (his Facebook page)

[Councilor Hyatt Lytle]

Thanks Nance, and I completely forgot the North South Corvallis group!

[Dan Crall]

If anyone in this group sees this as an opportunity to get some local information out there, our community station, KORC 105.9 FM is looking for a volunteer to cover info such as this.  Please get in touch w/ me if you're interested.  If you have audio production or journalism experience, that's a plus, but not a requirement.

Thanks!

dan

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Dan Crall - Station Manager, Program Director, DJ Coordinator 

KORC Community Radio for Corvallis - 105.9 FM or korcfm.com

541-609-8949

[owe...@gmail.com]

This is the third fire in Avery and Pioneer Park in the past several months. There were multiple fires at the BMX Park throughout 2020 and 2021. I have a feeling things will continue this way until we lose homes or most of the trees in on or more Parks. I rode home through Pioneer as far as the bridge where the path was blocked by a work vehicle presumably doing something related to the cable lines that run above the bridge. As I road through Avery Park on the other side, I noticed there were several vehicles from Peak and Pioneer ISPs working on the now-melted cable lines that provide internet throughout the mid-Valley. I wonder whether this will have an impact on internet service, since I heard that Peak may have been concerned about it. I also wonder whether there will be an impact to Vennel Farms' ability to use the rail line for transit, necessitating significantly increased truck traffic on 99.

It appeared to me that the City had cleaned up much of the campsites in Pioneer Park a few weeks ago. Over the winter I had already observed considerable destruction, and it became more clear once the City cleaned up the camps. City-owned culverts discharging directly to the Marys are filled with garbage, even after the cleanup. There are tire tracks cutting through large swaths of camas that predate this fire. I know that many such tracks have been left by service providers who I have seen handing out clothing and food in the park. There are numerous campsites along the banks where vegetation has been trampled or cut for firewood.

Along with others, working as part of a local group to identify homelessness solutions that are compatible with Southtown (e.g, permanent supportive housing, tiny homes, expansion of affordable housing through urban renewal, etc.) I provided testimony to the Council last year regarding the City's approach to addressing homelessness. Despite Council direction specifically recognizing that ecological impacts to parks required that campsites not be located in our parks continuously for more than a season at a time, as well as the general importance of geographic equity for making the challenge of unmanaged camping visible throughout Corvallis, AND the unsuitability of riparian corridors for unmanaged camping, the City has continued to hastily post camps in parks in north Corvallis that are not in riparian areas, while ignoring growing problems in the Mary's River corridor and other low income areas. This has concentrated unmanaged camping in our most valuable and vulnerable riparian areas. The City Manager specifically proposed to concentrate all unmanaged camping in Southtown last year and was rebuffed by the Council. He's figured out how to do that anyway. There are some camps in commercial areas of Northeast Corvallis as well, but seven out of nine Corvallis wards are basically insulated from ever seeing tents, thus allowing the City to continue to ignore the problem, occasionally posting tents and sending everyone to the BMX Park, then back to Pioneer, etc...

I'm frustrated that the City appears to continue to be ignoring these problems. I want them to really feel the pain of what a bad idea it is to continue to have uncontrolled burning, in the Mary's River corridor. But this same kind of fire has already happened twice since October very near to this area. I do not think they could get away with this in other areas of Corvallis. I don't see any reason why, after concentrating virtually all unmanaged camping south of Western and east of 26th for over two years, the City cannot act to do the same thing in Chintimini Park, Starker Arts Park, or Porter Park to give the Mary's River a break for a year or two. It seems fundamentally unfair to me the credulity and City staff time afforded to the Saving Open Spaces group's campaign against building market-rate housing on a monoculture of invasive blackberry, while protection of the most vulnerable open spaces we already have is totally and repeatedly ignored by City Staff, despite specific Council direction to prioritize these areas. I guess the answer is that those several people on Goldfinch have a land use attorney, while if you live in Twin Oaks, you do not have a right to expect responsiveness or consideration from your local government. 

Maybe this will light a fire under the City and the County to actually establish an appropriate shelter site. I can't understand how it isn't obvious that the status quo carries substantially more cost and more risk, including in terms of the City's liability, than implementing a centralized, managed shelter option. Addressing problems in unmanaged camps eats up a tremendous amount of the City's resources. The City is relying on the County to take action, but they've accomplished basically nothing in four years. Now they're establishing an "office of homeless response"? How many beds can they fit in the office? In actuality, "The money is designated for program establishment, staffing and outreach over the course of two years." So expect more fires for at least two more years, I guess, since they have no plans to accomplish anything of substance.

I plan to renew my advocacy to the Council and the County commissioners that they take actions that allow the public to hold them accountable. If there is an elected or appointed official who believes that the best solution to homelessness is to allow unmanaged camping in the Mary's River corridor indefinitely, I want that person to have to say that in public, instead of hiding by avoiding taking official actions. If the status quo is to continue, I want to see motions, land use code changes, NEPA alternative evaluations, cost estimates, and amendments to the City's NPDES permits. All of that is required to authorize what the City has instead accomplished through deliberate, selective posting of campsites in Corvallis' high income wards and looking the other way in the Mary's River watershed.

Owen McMurtrey

[Dan Crall]

Well said, Owen.  It really is high time our leadership stops enabling this growing, glaring problem.  I'm all for compassion and understanding, and acknowledging the true root of the problem... but people cannot be allowed to continually compromise our public spaces, create environmental hazards, and endanger others, unchecked. There is a shared responsibility we all share, and the problem is out of hand. Corvallis is becoming unsafe and with incidents like this, property and safety are in jeopardy. Enough is enough.

dan crall

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[Howie Opatowsky]

Well said by both of you!

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[Pat Mohr]

I totally agree with Owen and Dan also. We can’t keep enabling the homeless and putting ourselves at risk.  Pat Mohr

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[owe...@gmail.com]

I want to be clear that my arguments have nothing to do with the virtuousness of the City's homeless population. That is not a productive line of argument. I am not interested in criminalizing homelessness beyond the extent to which the City must have the authority to control the location of campsites to protect safety, treat all City residents equitably, and protect the environment. I am focused on specific elements of the City's handling of unmanaged camping:

1) City staff's handling of campsites in the Mary's River corridor is inconsistent with the Council's motions expressing a preference for preventing ecological damage to City Parks, preventing all camping in riparian corridors, and being cognizant of geographic equity in the distribution of campsites.

2) The City cannot continue to claim that unmanaged camping within the Mary's River corridor a nuisance use without addressing such nuisances in a more timely and permanent manner. Shuffling campsites among the Avery, Pioneer, the BMX Park and Shawala Point is plainly deliberate.

3) The City does not have a right to achieve through deliberate inaction what it cannot do under its own zoning codes, and without required state and federal authorizations.

I will also ask the City to make specific motions to clarify the City's current guidance on prioritization of posting campsites and to take more specific official actions in regard to unmanaged camping. It is inexcusable for elected and unelected officials to refuse to take official action to avoid accountability for the disasters that inevitably result from the absence of leadership and control. As I said before, if the City wants to establish permanent camps in the Mary's River corridor, which is what they are doing, they must take the necessary steps to amend their own land use code and obtain necessary state and federal permits. During that process, they can articulate why they think this area is the most suitable location and method for addressing homelessness in Corvallis and will be required to consider alternatives. That, I believe, is what they're so afraid of, since the Mary's River corridor is objectively the worst place to locate a homeless encampment, it just also happens to be the most politically expedient with the lowest risk of a litigious response from some moneyed north Corvallis interest. That's a bad reason for ineffective governance. I wish Mary's River Watershed Council would take a look at the scale of destruction--most of it having nothing to do with the fire--and engage with the City about this. Southtown residents are generally not sufficiently important on their own to warrant the City's attention.

I'd also just note that there has for weeks been an encampment under the bridge from Avery to 16th. I am not looking forward to the inevitable next fire affecting that bridge, the associated water main, and the trees surrounding the entrance to Avery Park.

Owen McMurtrey

[Howie Opatowsky]

Agree 💯!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/south-corvallis/0d71a236-5576-4522-8003-2688308df920n%40googlegroups.com.