Delay in recording property annexations said to have caused loss in property tax revenue for the city
By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news
Due to a series of tasks left incomplete by the previous city recorder, the city of Ashland is facing lost revenue and potential legal ramifications, according to documents obtained by Ashland.news.
In the wake of the resignation of the previous city recorder last year, city officials are working to organize and process a significant volume of work left undone.
In an email obtained through a public information request by Ashland.news, Interim City Manager Sabrina Cotta updated the City Council and Mayor Tonya Graham on March 18 with a list of the work, highlighted progress by city staff to clear the backlog, and informed councilors about how long it will take to bring the recorder’s office current.
“In our estimate it will take at least another two years to right the ship in this area,” Cotta wrote.
The email list includes: council meeting minutes left incomplete and unsigned; property data for the city not up-to-date; liens missing for system development charges; Ashland Municipal Charter updates approved by council but not updated in the code; and ordinances and resolutions were not signed by the recorder.
Asked for details about unsigned resolutions and ordinances, Cotta said the city’s legal department would have to clarify the impact of missing signatures. She estimated there were more than 20 unsigned documents of this type.
In the Ashland Municipal Charter (AMC), ordinances passed by council take effect 30 days after they are voted in, unless vetoed by the mayor, said Interim City Attorney Doug McGeary in an email Thursday. A lack of signatures, he said, would only delay updating the AMC.
Annexation paperwork for two properties was not completed in a timely manner, resulting in lost tax revenue. The Beach Creek Subdivision should have been annexed from Jackson County in 2021 and South Ashland Business Park in 2018. The tax revenue the city should have collected during this time cannot be recovered, Cotta said.
Prior recorder stepped down last summer
Previous City Recorder Melissa Huhtala resigned effective June 30, 2023, but said she planned to continue to hold the office through Aug. 31, with limited availability while she assisted the city while a search for her replacement was underway.
“My tenure as an elected City official has been an incredible experience. … I have worked hard and been dedicated to the role. I appreciate the opportunity to have worked with my fellow elected officials and the dedicated City Staff. I have done my best to serve and help the community in any way possible,” Huhtala stated in a post on the city of Ashland’s site.
Huhtala could not be immediately reached for comment.
She was appointed by Ashland City Council in 2017, according to an Ashland.news story, and was reelected after running unopposed in 2018.
Her appointment came after the 2017 retirement of longtime Recorder Barbara Christensen, whose term started in 1994, according to a filing with the Oregon Secretary of State.
The city ended up appointing a city employee, Alissa Kolodzinski, to fill the city recorder vacancy by vote of the City Council on Oct. 17, 2023, according to a council agenda item.
Complaints that paperwork was not processed
Temporary liquor licenses were also listed as an issue in Cotta’s email. And in an additional email obtained by Ashland.news, a small group of Ashland business owners wrote to Huhtala in March 2023 regarding this issue.
“We, several local business owners and entrepreneurs. … Are writing to withdraw multiple applications for numerous permits and licenses submitted over the preceding 6 months related to multiple projects,” wrote Curtis Hall, former co-owner of the Trapdoor Bar & Grill in Ashland.
The events included a “two day, outdoor, family friendly St. Patrick’s day festival” and an accompanying “5k charity ‘Shamrock Run.’” The St. Patrick’s Day festival would have included two days of concerts with local musicians, sponsorships from local businesses and support for local nonprofits such as the Maslow Project and Rockafairy, according to the email.
“The challenges facing entrepreneurs in Ashland are already significant, and the city’s lack of responsiveness only further compounds these difficulties. Delays caused by city bureaucracy can be frustrating, expensive, and time-consuming, and they can dictate the success or failure of new projects,” Hall wrote.
He estimated the improperly processed licenses and permits resulted in a loss of $3,500 after he “went with his gut,” and canceled the events, according to the email. He described a good-faith effort on the part of most city employees involved in these projects, “But elsewhere, we were back-burnered and ignored,” he said of the recorder’s office.
The permits languished for 56 days from the date of initial application despite filing for the permits early, paying all necessary fees and following up with the recorder’s office via email numerous times, Hall wrote.
When asked about the current process for temporary liquor licenses, Cotta said the process is “revamped,” and is now expected to take as little as a single day, or five days at most.
Also listed in Cotta’s email to councilors was an issue with records organization and retention. Proper records destruction and updating of the city’s records database has not occurred since 2017, the email says. At the April 12 City Council retreat, Cotta stated it is “difficult to walk,” in an area of City Hall due to a stack of boxed records that should have been destroyed.
“It was noticed,” Cotta said when asked how boxes of incomplete work could accumulate to that degree.
“As an elected position there is no (city administrative) authority over the actions of an elected Recorder,” she added.
Temporary staff have been hired to chip away at the backlog, alongside the current appointed city recorder, Cotta said. Some progress has been made, including the signing of unsigned ordinances and resolutions, updating outstanding council minutes, updating the city’s records request process, a backlog in scanned records is now complete and the city’s Information Technology department is assisting in updating property data, Cotta said.
Ballot measure would make office appointive
Ashland City Council voted unanimously Feb. 6 to create a ballot measure for the upcoming May special election to ask voters to decide if the city will alter its charter to make the recorder position filled through the city’s hiring process rather than an elected official.
“I look forward to seeing the public decision on the ballot item so the City will know how to move forward,” Cotta said.
The city previously considered this change in 2015, according to a City Council study session agenda item. Ashland is one of two cities — Prescott and Elgin are the others — in Oregon with a recorder as an elected official, the agenda item said.
In 1908 when the city’s current charter was adopted, the city recorder duties were combined with those of an elected official called the “Police Judge.”
Women gained the right to vote in Oregon in 1912. There was local pressure to elect a woman to as police judge, but some had concerns about the sensitive and potentially scandalous information a woman in that position would be privy to, according to the agenda item. At the time, the Ashland Tidings wrote, “modesty will not permit it.”
The city created a separate elected position titled “City Recorder” and a woman was elected to the role, according to the 2015 agenda item.
“Staff was unable to determine from our research why the Council in 1918 kept the recorder an elected position,” the agenda item said.
Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].
Related story: ‘It’s the accountability’: Retired Ashland city recorder speaks about former office ahead of ballot measure (May 6, 2024)
