By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The cities of Yachats and Waldport have embarked on a two-year experiment to with work an Albany-based regional government to provide planning services for the two communities.
The effort reflects the difficulty in attracting qualified planners or other governmental experts to rural Oregon that is compounded by small cities not needing a full-time employee to do the work.
Both cities also wanted to contract with the Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments to be able to tap into additional or deeper planning expertise for complicated issues or extra projects.
In selecting a planner this summer, the city managers of Yachats and Waldport also went outside tradition and selected an experienced architect with no previous planning experience.
Holly Hamilton started working two days a week in each city this summer after several weeks of transition with CoG planner Justin Peterson. She replaces Dave Mattison of Tillamook whose contract expired July 1 after 1½ years.
Hamilton moved to Waldport in June with her family. Hamilton was born and educated in Canada, then worked in the architecture and construction industry in New York, Colorado and California. She worked for the University of Colorado-Denver as a project manager and completed a masters degree in planning there.
“Holly brings a different type of experience coming from the other side of the counter,” said Yachats City Manager Shannon Beaucaire. “She had this other depth of experience and character that would round out her expertise for this community.”
Waldport City Manager Dann Cutter, who served as an interim director of the regional government last year, was equally as enthusiastic.
“There wasn’t an ounce of trepidation on my side,” Cutter said. “And, in the last two weeks she’s hit the ground running. I wasn’t surprised by that; it’s what we expected.”
Small cities can struggle to find qualified personnel for part-time jobs
Both Waldport and Yachats struggled to find someone after planner Larry Lewis of Newport began cutting back his contract work in those cities and Depoe Bay in 2018. He had worked in those cities for 17 years.
Yachats began contracting with Mattison in 2019. He commuted one day a week from Tillamook and worked from home a second day.
When Lewis’ contract with Waldport expired n December 2019, that city went through CoG to use Peterson as a planner.
But Yachats also brought in Peterson from the council of governments for some special projects, and that got Beaucaire and Cutter thinking about going through them to hire a single coastal planner to service three cities.
The city of Toledo was initially in on the idea, but dropped out early this year. Toledo has an employee who serves as both the city’s attorney and planner, but he has been on active military duty and the city is required by law to hold his job open for him, should he return. It now contracts separately with CoG for Peterson’s services one day a week.
Beaucaire has pushed for using “shared services” in her three years in Yachats in part because it is often difficult to find the right person for part-time work.
A contract with CoG to provide financial services for Yachats, however, did not go well initially as its personnel struggled to sort out a new accounting system and provide the kind of financial documents sought by the City Council and various commissions. After more than a year, that service is apparently smoothing out.
Waldport uses CoG for its financial work and has experienced no issues, said Cutter, who became city manager in April after serving as mayor.
Regional consortium provides help
The Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments is based in Albany and provides a variety of contracted services to local governments in Lincoln, Benton and Linn counties.
It operates a variety of human service programs for seniors and the disabled, community services such as Meals on Wheels, business development and transportation planning. In addition to finance services, it contracts out for GIS mapping services, internet technology services, and human relations and personnel help.
The agency “has always been seen as an extension of city/county services,” said Rick Meltzer, CoG’s transportation program manager.
The agency had been providing planning services for the city of Sweet Home and Toledo when Yachats and Waldport initiated the discussion about a coastal planner.
Once the cities agreed, it advertised the job locally, throughout the region and nationally, getting 15 responses. A first round of interviews winnowed candidates to three finalists – Hamilton, Mattison and a recent college graduate.
Cutter, Beaucaire and Peterson did the final interviews and selected Hamilton.
The two cities’ contracts are different in length and cost.
Waldport’s contract started Jan. 1 and goes through June 30, 2021. It pays CoG $4,200 a month for 16 hours a week of planning services. Anything above 16 hours costs $79 an hour.
Yachats’ contract started July 1 and runs for two years, unless it is terminated with 30 day’s notice. It is paying $6,100 a month for 20 hours a week of planning services and $79 an hour additional if more time is needed.
Yachats paid Mattison $75 an hour.