City to seek to ensure adoption of state wildfire hazard map doesn’t override city’s more strict fire-resistant construction requirements

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news 

Ashland City Council voted unanimously during Tuesday’s business meeting to add a measure to the upcoming November ballot asking voters if they want their municipal judge to become an appointed position rather than an elected office. 

Ashland Municipal Judge Pamela Turner has submitted her resignation for retirement to the city, effective Aug. 30. The city charter dictates council find and appoint a replacement to serve the remainder of Turner’s term within 60 days of the effective date, said Interim City Manager Sabrina Cotta. But the open position also presents an opportunity for change, councilors agreed. 

Many other municipalities opt for appointed and contracted municipal judges allowing for multiple potential judges to cover one another in the event of vacation, illness or other absences and cost savings for the city as judges would be paid according to the work that needs to be done. An appointed or contracted judge would also be subject to lists of qualifications, education and experience at the time of hiring and oversight from the city manager and city council, Cotta said. 

The Ashland city charter dictates the judge be paid a full-time salary with benefits regardless of hours worked. Cotta stated recently the court has been open one day per week. Over the past 17 years the city has expended “over half a million dollars” in benefits paid to the judge, Cotta said. Oversight of the elected judge is limited to the discretion of voters during the election and requires no qualifications other than winning the election and being a member of the Oregon State Bar. 

Ashland homeless advocate Debbie Niesewander testified during public comment in favor of retaining the position as an elected office. 

“I find it important to have an elected judge rather than an appointed judge because of my distrust, mostly, but the agenda of the city could lead the judge to act more unfairly,” she said. 

Niesewander stated in her outreach work she got to know Turner and appreciated her fairness and the way she always made the courtroom feel safe and comfortable. The recent limited access to the court and judge have made it harder to keep people on track with community service sentences and reliance on digitized proceedings isn’t fair or equitable to homeless people who don’t always own the requisite technology, she said. 

Council voted unanimously to add a measure to the November ballot asking voters if they want to make the municipal judge an appointed position or retain it as an elected office. Council also voted unanimously to direct the city manager to seek a replacement judge to serve the remainder of Turner’s term in office. 

State wildfire hazard map could affect local code enforcement

In other council business Tuesday, Ashland Fire Marshal Mark Shay and Wildfire Division Chief Chris Chambers gave a presentation about the impending wildfire hazard map that negates city code enforcement of fire resistant new construction. 

Senate Bill 80 is “kind of a clean up” of last year’s Senate Bill 762, Chambers said. The statewide wildfire risk map included in the bill designates large swaths of the city as moderate and low risk areas for wildfire. But Ashland determined the entire city limits constituted high wildfire risk in 2018, and created city code requiring certain kinds of fire resiliency in new construction. The state map would alter the city’s risk designations, effectively making it impossible for the city to enforce its own code, Shay said. 

Councilor Bob Kaplan stated in his reading of the state map he did not believe it negated the city’s code. Chambers stated in his correspondence with the Oregon Building Codes Division he was told that it would. 

Councilors voted unanimously for staff’s request to lend the weight of council and the mayor’s office to a letter written by Mayor Tonya Graham to be sent to state officials requesting the city of Ashland retain its own unique wildfire risk designations and corresponding code enforcement. 

“I will be calling the league, and let’s have some other conversations in terms of what we do with this letter and how we let the state and others understand how important that is, not just for us but for the whole state,” Graham said. 

Public comment on the map is open until Aug. 18, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry website. 

Councilors also voted unanimously to begin the process of altering the city’s urban growth boundary at the 375 & 475 East Nevada St. property where a disputed error in the boundary line has impeded a property development for six years. 

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].