Yachats council update on Ocean View Drive pocket parks turns into vote over manager oversight of process

 

By KENNETH LIPP/YachatsNews

YACHATS — The city of Yachats is one easement away from taking ownership of Ocean View Drive, the final obstacle to finishing a series of pocket parks and breaking ground on a $1 million boardwalk.

But a prolonged city council discussion last week of an insurance agent’s visit to the parks also turned into a tussle among council members regarding the project’s oversight by the city manager.

The city is awaiting transfer of the last portion of Ocean View and Marine drives and adjacent rights-of-way as part of the 18-year-old 804 Trail settlement agreement with Lincoln County, several organizations and property owners. In 2017, the city resumed negotiations with the county, which was to obtain property and necessary easements, ensure the road was up to standards, make trail improvements and fulfill various other requirements.

During the first two years of the Covid pandemic, the Yachats Parks & Commons Commission made significant progress with planning, design and funding for several projects, including two small “pocket parks” on the west side of Ocean View. The pedestrian waysides would serve as spots to rest and take in the dramatic ocean views.

In October 2021, the city council approved $25,000 for pocket parks in two approximately 1,200-square-foot unimproved areas across from Fourth and Sixth streets. With working titles of North and South Sunset, the park areas are already protected from vehicle traffic by delineators separating the 804 Trail from the driving area, new guardrails and large boulders.

The proposal from the Parks & Commons Commission and other volunteers moves and adds benches, cut paths through grasses and salal to new sitting areas, scrapes off or levels areas of gravel, installs warning signs and plants native flora.

The commission — with council approval — got as far as purchasing $3,000 worth of plants. But its progress hit a snag when plans reached an understaffed city hall and unfilled requirements such as an archaeological review of the sites and final easements. Unable to enhance property they don’t own, the commission put the plants in storage.

City manager Heide Lambert said the county has obtained two easements in the past six months — the city is responsible for sending letters seeking the easements — and has one more to get before the county can relinquish its ownership of Ocean View. Then the city can move forward with the pocket parks and, eventually, a 350-foot-long boardwalk overlooking the Yachats River.

Risk assessment

Lambert asked the city’s insurance company to evaluate all three parks for potential safety hazards. Some of its recommendations, delivered to the city council last week, mirror or are similar to existing plans.

While the project appears poised to finally move forward, tensions still arose about the subject among councilors,  two of whom served on the Parks & Commons Commission before joining the council in January. On Wednesday, they expressed frustration with the insurance agency’s report and delays in the process. Moving forward with the parks is among the new mayor Craig Berdie’s goals.

The subject matter also highlighted an increasingly apparent conflict of philosophy among councilors about how to supervise their city manager.

During its regular meeting Wednesday, the council heard recommendations from its insurance company for the layout of the pocket parks and the existing Peace Park a bit farther north. Katie Durfee, risk management supervisor for Citycounty Insurance Services, visited the parks along with city staff on Jan. 20. She suggested the city implement measures to discourage visitors from approaching the cliff and from using apparent trails as beach access, as they lead to dangerous rocks.

Recommendations at all three parks are essentially the same — place a line of boulders farther west; move west-facing benches east next to the trail; and install signs on the west side of the boulders facing east warning of hazardous terrain, potential exposure to sneaker waves and signs on trails warning that beach access is “at your own risk.”

Durfee said beach access warning signs are needed because paths that spur from the main viewpoint are treacherous.

“With all due respect, I think unfortunately in your visit there may have been gross misguiding,” said councilor Catherine Whitten-Carey, who served on the Parks and Commons Commission. “Claiming that (people are) clamoring down the rocks, or paths, is not the case, people do that, but it’s not a real path. The handrail you described is actually a broken steel tether from a utility pole and you can see the other half hanging in the wind,” she said, referring to recommendations regarding North Sunset in Durfee’s written report.

Whitten-Carey said there are people in Yachats who have worked on the parks for years “in terms of their dreams and their plans for them,” and she asked why there wasn’t representation from the parks commission during the consultant’s on-site review.

“That would have informed this visit much better,” Whitten-Carey said.

Durfee said she would be willing to return. She added that she knew it was not an actual handrail but believed the guy wire at North Sunset was being used to climb over the rocks. And even if the pathways are not formal trails, people unfamiliar with the area might believe they are and not realize hazardous conditions await them below.

“I felt that there were just some really easy ways that you could limit exposure,” Durfee said. “There’s some erosion on the cliffside next to it, and bringing that park bench back next to the trail would discourage people from getting close to the cliff edge.”

She noted her company did not provide liability coverage where city property ends and where Oregon State Parks’ jurisdiction begins.

Councilor Greg Scott said the city has relied on immunity from liability based on the free status of all trails all over town.

Berdie, who chaired the Parks and Commons Commission when it devised the pocket parks plan, noted it already intended to move the benches farther east, although not so close to the path.

“Just, somebody walking down the trail sitting on the bench and you get slapped in the back of the head,” he said. “I’d rather have it a few feet in so there’s a little privacy there.”

Lambert said she believed the main difference between Durfee’s recommendations and the commission plan was the relative positions of signs, benches and boulders, the former aiming to corral visitors toward the paved pathway.

Scott said the original reasoning behind placing boulders at the park was to keep vehicles off the trail, and he scoffed at the idea of the approximately 3-foot rocks deterring people on foot.

“What we want to discourage is people going into that area close to where the cliff is eroding,” Durfee said.

Councilor Ann Stott said she thought the proposed arrangement was reasonable, with some adjustments, such as smaller boulders between the bench and the cliff to maintain the view.

“I think if we take this and we mold it with what we’re doing, we’re on the right track,” Stott said. “They make good recommendations.”

Berdie said he agreed the recommendations had merit and suggested sending them to the commission to modify the plan.

Stott pointed out that the parks have never been formally named. Drawing on an element of Durfee’s report — that calling them parks would have the effect of attracting people there as a destination — she repeated a suggestion she said she made to the Parks and Commons Commission that was not well received at the time.

“What if we call the whole thing something like ‘Sunset Walkway,’” she asked. “Instead of identifying this pocket here, this pocket here.”

“Hopefully this clears the air”

At the end of the meeting, Berdie again raised the issue of the Ocean View easements, asking if any city councilors had oversight in the process.

“Until the county hands it over, we’re basically in waiting mode,” Scott said.

“We do the distributions of easements,” Lambert said, adding they’ve completed two since August. “We’re waiting on one easement.”

She said county commission chair Kaety Jacobson told her the city is “so close” to completing the process.

“My question is, does any elected official have any idea what we’re talking about, and should we,” Berdie said.

Lambert replied that it was an administrative duty.

“I agree that it’s an administrative duty, but there’s an oversight responsibility that any elected body has over the administration, and it’s not to interfere,” the mayor said.

Lambert said she’d invited Berdie to her office to discuss the matter, and that she was sensing a distrust from him and another councilor that she did not understand.

Berdie said Lambert previously told him he needed a vote of the council to get the information. Lambert  replied that she said Berdie would need a vote to have the administrative oversight he sought. Berdie told her he misspoke.

“I have made more progress on this road than has happened in five years, and for some reason you’re asking to have more oversight of me, and I don’t understand what that is,” Lambert said.

Berdie said he thought it was appropriate to understand the details of what an employee is doing.

“Let’s back up,” Scott interjected. “The oversight body is the council. So if you want to make a motion along this line, we can vote on it right now.”

Berdie made a motion: That at least one and no more than two members of council “have access to the written communications regarding easements for Ocean View Drive.” He and Whitten-Carey voted yes; and Scott, Stott and councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey voted no.

“Hopefully that clears the air,” Scott said.

• Kenneth Lipp is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at KenLipp@YachatsNews.com