YACHATS – For the first time in more than two years, the city of Yachats will have someone taking notes during council and commission meetings — or listening to recordings afterwards – and creating summaries of what occurred.
The Yachats City Council agreed last week that it likes several samples of meeting summaries that newly hired contractor Lorraine Barrett had created from several previous meetings. But only after a 40-minute discussion did it agree on what to call them – “summary of official minutes.”
The city has not had anyone taking meeting minutes since Helen Anderson left that role in 2019. Unable to find anyone to replace her, it was determined that recordings of meetings posted to the city’s website could serve as the official minutes.
Some councilors and members of the public complained that it was too difficult and not transparent enough to expect people try to figure out what was going on by listening to hours-long council sessions or meetings of four city commissions and two committees. Only recently did the city find someone willing, available and able to create the summaries and Barrett did a test of a format from two November council sessions.
Interim city manager Katherine Guenther said she and Barrett are trying to create “searchable” summaries so that people could avoid listing to hours of recordings. But the summaries will include a time of the meeting a particular discussion took place, so councilors, commission members and the public could more easily find the original discussion in hours of a recording.
Councilor Greg Scott argued that until two years ago the city had 50 years of written, municipal history and asked if it was feasible for Barrett to go back through previous meetings to re-create official minutes that would have to be approved by the council or various commissions.
“Why deviate,” he asked. “These need to be the official minutes.”
But others said the current council could not approve minutes from a previous council, although Barrett could go back to meetings starting in January when a new mayor and two councilors were sworn in.
After agreeing with Scott that they would have a chance to correct and approve Barrett’s work, the council said they would officially be called a “summary of official minutes” would begin with all council and commission meetings in November.
In other business last week:
- Approved a recommendation from the Parks & Commons Commission to award a bid of $38,400 to Searose Yard and Home of Yachats to paint the interior of the Commons early next year. The council did not decide on a separate recommendation to approve a $28,500 bid from Searose to paint the Commons’ exterior later in 2022 when weather allows.
- Approved a $72,000 grant application to the Federal Emergency Management Administration to buy and install an earthquake valve on a waterline near the Yachats River bridge to prevent water storage tanks from draining should a line be knocked out by an earthquake.
- To help resolve disputes between a homeowner along the unofficial Starr Creek trail north of Yachats, agreed to extend an intergovernmental agreement with the Siuslaw National Forest to extend the city’s responsibility for an additional 100 yards of the Ya’Xaik Trail to the north and for the Yachats Trails Committee to help build and maintain that extension.