The city of Corvallis on Monday passed a sanctuary city resolution and also approved the work of its climate action task force.
The meeting at the downtown fire station attracted a standing-room-only crowd of approximately 100 people. The session was in its fourth hour as the Gazette-Times’ presstime approached.
The sanctuary city resolution passed on an 8-1 vote after a series of amendments, with Ward 2 Councilor Roen Hogg the lone dissenter. Hogg expressed concerns about using the amendment process to edit the resolution on the fly and requested that councilors continue to work on the resolution and revisit it on Jan. 3.
“Language, language,” said Ward 6 Councilor Joel Hirsch. “It’s more important to get this done. It’s important for us to put a marker down. Let’s do this!” he said as he smacked his hand on the table.
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A total of 26 people spoke during the community comments period, with 11 speaking in favor of the sanctuary resolution, seven backing the climate plan and seven more supporting both issues. Two former councilors spoke, Jeanne Raymond (backing both issues) and Tina Empol, who spoke on the sanctuary item.
The testimony at times was emotional, with community activist Shelly Moon noting two occasions since the presidential election in which she was called the n-word.
Ryan Blough, a veteran and Linn-Benton Community College student, told councilors “if you do the wrong thing there will be a backlash” to strong applause, leading Mayor Biff Traber to admonish the audience that “this is not a game show.”
Councilors amended the resolution five times during deliberations. A couple of the changes were minor editing tweaks, but others sought to add more punch to the resolution based on suggestions from the city’s King Legacy Advisory Board.
Corvallis is just one of dozens of U.S. cities, counties and other entities that has passed sanctuary resolutions in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, who has vowed to deport undocumented immigrants and withdraw federal funds from those who pass sanctuary measures.
No one who testified Monday noted the risk involved. The city receives millions of dollars in federal funding each year, mainly for transportation, road improvement and housing projects. City officials say they have not done a risk assessment and Traber, in a statement that accompanied the draft resolution in the council packet, said that “council members could address it” if federal funding was at risk.
Deliberations on the climate action plan were shorter and sweeter, with the discussion mainly focusing on thanking those who had worked on the plan rather than debating the goals and targets contained in the 81-page document.
Traber hopes to extend the life of the task force that developed the climate plan another six months, but the details of the extension still remain to be worked out.
Monday night’s meeting was the final session for outgoing Councilors Mike Beilstein (Ward 5), Hirsch, Zach Baker (Ward 3) and Frank Hann (Ward 8). Beilstein is retiring after six terms. Hirsch was defeated by Nancy Wyse in a bid for a fifth term. Baker and Hann both are bowing out after one term because of the difficulty of juggling personal schedules with council work.
Contact reporter James Day at jim.day@gazettetimes.com or 541-758-9542. Follow at Twitter.com/jameshday or gazettetimes.com/blogs/jim-day.