By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The Yachats City Council spent an hour Wednesday night meeting with the three Lincoln County commissioners, getting the county’s view — and asking a few questions — on a laundry list of issues.
The meeting was a yearly visit by the Newport-based commission to visit city councils in all the county’s incorporated areas.
While commissioners and county counsel Wayne Belmont mostly explained what the county could and could not do on certain issues – single use plastics, homelessness, housing and vacation rentals – there were a few topics that brought out some developments.
During a discussion about the county’s long process of handing over Ocean View Drive to the city, public works director Roy Kinion said he was worried about more delays with archeological studies and a short construction season so was leaning toward paving the road before a new fiscal year starts July 1. He said Yachats can figure out traffic flow – there is a debate about making the south part of Ocean View one-way – later. Kinion also said the county this spring would put new, smaller-sized compacted gravel on sections of the 804 Trail along Ocean View Drive.
During a discussion on developing partnerships and how some residents of south Lincoln County feel short-changed on services, Sheriff Curtis Landers mentioned how Waldport and Toledo had inquired about paying the sheriff’s office to handle code enforcement in their cities. The sheriff last year hired an officer to enforce nuisance codes in unincorporated areas and is getting good feedback, he said.
Yachats has struggled to find or keep someone as a contracted code enforcement officer for the past year, now adding those duties to a one-day-a-week planner. The city has money in its budget and authorization to hire a full-time employee to handle planning and code enforcement, but has been unable to do so.
“It’s a new position and it’s a lot of work for one person to do,” Lander said of his new officer. “Let’s give it a little time …”
On other topics:
- Vacation rentals and lodging taxes: There is no talk of the county increasing its lodging tax from 10 percent. And, unlike cities, state law requires any county increase be approved by voters. Commissioner Doug Hunt said a new business licensing program has been “pretty effective” in controlling vacation rental noise, parking and garbage issues outside of cities. Yachats’ 2-year-old vacation rental limit and rules are up for examination in the fall.
- Single-use plastics: Commissioners cannot enact a countywide ordinance without a public vote and are not looking to do that. “Like solid waste, it’s a city issue,” Belmont said. The Newport City Council recently approved a ban, he said, and Lincoln City is taking a different route to try to reduce overall waste. Yachats has talked about the issue, but has not yet formulated a proposal.
- Homelessness and mental health: All coastal cities are struggling with the issue, trying to find ways to attack the two, often interconnected problems with limited resources, commissioners said. Local governments are also affected by a 2018 federal court ruling on an Idaho case that declared cities can’t treat homelessness like a crime. “It limits us, or guides us,” Belmont said. “It has changed the legal background. It’s a different world.” Commission Chair Claire Hall said the county is trying to develop a “more robust” treatment program for the mentally ill and that the sheriff’s office recently received a three-year $700,000 grant for pre-trial mental health services. “Thirty percent of the population in the Lincoln County Jail are diagnosed with a mental illness,” she said. The other difficult challenge is to develop permanent, structured housing to support mental health services.
- Affordable housing: Again, Hall said, there is no “silver bullet” solution to what is a statewide issue. The soon-to-open 21-unit addition to Fisterra Garden apartments in Yachats is an example of good use of state bonds to build low-income housing, Hall said. But there needs to be other ways to help, she said, including code changes to allow more shared housing, manufactured home parks and a “need to encourage innovation and flexibility.”