A Few Minutes with the Mayor – March 2022

In last month’s column I gave a report on work that went on last year in City Hall and its departments. This month I’ll bring you up to date on City Council projects. Next month I will feature City Commissions and Committees. My aim is to give you a look at how the City operates between City Hall, City Government, and City Commissions and Committees. The people who complete these groups are diverse, talented and dedicated, and freely give their time and energy to Jacksonville and our citizens. I thank each and every one of you in the above groups, and the many volunteer organizations that support the City.

2021 brought several changes to city government and the way we do business. We said goodbye to longtime Mayor, Paul Becker, who after many years of service to our city, decided to retire. Most of you know we elect half of the City Council, for a four-year term every two years, alternating in groups of three. The Mayor is elected on one of those cycles, for a four-year term. This last election cycle, I successfully ran for Mayor, after serving on Council for two years. Councilors Steve Casaleggio and Mike McLain were re-elected and Andrea Thompson was newly-elected. Councilors Ken Gregg and Jim Lewis continued their terms. Scott Selbe was appointed to fill the remaining two years left in my term as Councilor.

2021 also marked a change by dividing Council sessions. A regular business meeting of the Council is held on the first Tuesday and a work session on the third Tuesday of each month. This helped to streamline regular meetings into shorter, concise sessions. The work sessions enabled Council to really become a very active, educated group, with focus on different subjects each month. We began by identifying projects and subjects in order of importance to the city. Council then divided into individuals and groups specific to their interests and expertise. The focus began on research and education on these topics. Each topic was then brought back to work session for report, review and possibly as an agenda item at a regular council meeting. We also decided immediately that some topics would be ongoing, due to the complexity and scope required to be truly effective.

Councils’ first year of topics included building a Comprehensive Safety Plan; education on both Urban Renewal and Urban Growth; a session with the City Attorney on duties and legal issues for the Mayor and Council; code enforcement; and the possibility of a city museum. All this was in addition to our regular duties as Mayor and Councilors.

The need for a Comprehensive Safety Plan (CSP) was unanimously deemed first in importance. Council agreed that a group composed of Councilors Mike McClain, Andrea Thompson and Scott Selbe should research a Comprehensive Safety Plan for the City of Jacksonville and come back to a council work session with their findings. The CSP is just one of the ongoing, long-term projects we have undertaken, with citizen safety, education, and collaboration foremost in our minds. A plan for emergency evacuation, including routes and neighborhoods was paramount. We developed both an Emergency Evacuation Checklist & Map, along with a Citizen’s Emergency Guide. We were relieved to provide both to our citizens this fall. A center spread layout of the plan was provided to you by the Jacksonville Review, copies were included in the City Services Bill, on the City webpage, and are here at City Hall. Both the checklist and map are probably the two elements people were most excited and relieved to see last year. Councilor Thompson also wrote several articles for the Jacksonville Review detailing the work of the Ad-Hoc committee. In tandem with this, Council, the CSP ad-hoc committee, along with our Fire Chief, Firewise volunteers, city volunteers and others facilitated multiple programs. We introduced chipping plans; supported the expansion of Firewise communities; annual clean-up days; grants for thinning and fuel reduction; education of the community; we added interns to the fire department; approved an ordinance prohibiting fireworks citywide; and supported a workshop on blackberry abatement led by Mike and Laurie Thornton. The City is participating in mutual and automatic aid agreements locally and statewide. The City also regularly reviews and updates our Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) and other key documents. This year we will continue—Councilor Selbe has been researching hazardous material abatement, we are working on prescribed burning areas, enforcing code violations of hazardous materials on private property and we are presently developing a truly functional Emergency Operations Center for our new fire hall. The CSP that this Council and the Ad-Hoc Committee are developing is the most important work we have undertaken. It is ongoing and will be foremost in our minds each year.

Councilor Ken Gregg began research regarding a City Museum and sent out a survey for Council. The results of that survey were published in the Jacksonville Review’s November 2021 issue. The survey asked: Should there be a museum in the first place? The consensus was yes. Where would be the best location? The consensus was Old City Hall, with an alternate proposed by Councilor Thompson. Should the city participate in supporting the museum by covering the monthly & yearly expenses? The answered were equally divided between yes & no. No clear answer was formed. What funding resources are available. Again, no clear answer was formed. Other questions were about involving Southern Oregon Historical Society and should an entrance fee be required? All in all, it was clear that more research was needed and we had more questions than answers. An interesting development occurred when Councilor Thompson suggested that the whole city is a museum, a museum without walls! We have a town with a historic core on the National Historic Registry, a historic cemetery, a historic courthouse with a photographic exhibit, Old City Hall and Fire Station, historic homes and storefronts, the Path Through Time sidewalk panels, the Chinatown Street Exhibit and much more. This is a good starting point for further development of ideas for a museum. We will have more to report this year. You can re-read Councilor Gregg’s report online at https://jacksonvillereview.com/considering-a-museum-by-mayor-donna-bowen-and-councilor-ken-gregg/.

Councilor Jim Lewis has been a quiet, steady force on Council for many years. As a former Mayor, he is well-versed in what it takes to govern a city effectively. Councilor Lewis currently serves as President of City Council. Should your Mayor be unable to fulfill her duties, Councilor Lewis would fill my position until such time as a new Mayor was appointed or elected. Many of you might not know that Councilor Lewis has served the city on RVCOG (Rogue Valley Council of Government, RVACT (Rogue Valley Area Commission on Transportation) and RVMPO (Rogue Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization) for many terms. He is currently representing RVMPO as Chair, at the quarterly meetings of OMPOC (Oregon Metropolitan Planning Consortium). I very much appreciate the work Jim puts in as a necessary, but unsung representative of the city for these groups. RVCOG’s current emphasis is on developing early warning networks for seismic and wildfire events, including a number of cameras installed and functional for early wildfire warnings. RVACT and RVMPO are working on plans and policies to best equitably employ the new federal infrastructure funding on transportation projects in our region.

Another long-term project is the work of Councilor Steve Casaleggio, who is rewriting our Municipal Code, Chapters 1-14. This Code constitutes the general and permanent ordinances of the City and is not to be confused with the Code Revision being done by the CAC (Citizens Advisory Committee). The CAC is working on the Jacksonville Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code (Chapters 15-18 of the Jacksonville Municipal Code). More on the CAC at a later date. After research and review by Council, it was determined that Chapters 1-14 of our Municipal Code were outdated, inconsistent, missing key components, and generally difficult to understand and use. Councilor Casaleggio has undertaken the time to critique chapters 1-14, bring them up to date and modernize them. To simplify: the old version and the proposed new version are brought to Council. Council then reviews the material and calls for the new ordinance to be brought to a Council meeting. The new version is made available to the public, is an agenda item at a Council meeting and the new ordinance undergoes a full, first public reading. It is then put to approval by Council and comes to the next Council meeting for a second reading (by title only), hopefully approved by Council and voted on for adoption. If the vote is “yes” to the ordinance, it becomes effective after thirty days. If “no,” it’s back to revising. The re-write of Title 8, Health and Safety was adopted July 6, 2021. The re-write of Title 1, General Provisions, was adopted February 3, 2022. You can find both updates on the city webpage by searching Jacksonville Municipal Code.

After reading this tome of an article, you can see why I’m grateful for the talent and time your City Council provides to us. To accomplish so much, with or without a pandemic, is astounding and outstanding!

Thank you for reading and for you’re your feedback on “A Few Minutes with the Mayor.” I’ll be back next month with an update on Commissions and Committees.