The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG – Council members spent a large chunk of the June 15 Waitsburg City Council meeting evaluating current city codes to be considered for revision or repeal. City Administrator Randy Hinchliffe said the last comprehensive code review was approximately ten years ago and about half the code was stripped away at that time.

Some of the proposed modifications were word changes, such as substituting the words “City Administrator” for “City Marshal” since the city no longer has a marshal. Codes were also modified to clarify policy such as clearly stating that the customer is responsible for caring for and maintaining sewer lines on their property.

Several modifications were proposed with the intent of streamlining processes and decision-making. Examples include:

The filing date for declarations of candidacy was changed from “ten (10) business days beginning on the first Monday of March” to “ten (10) business days beginning on the first day of March.”

Property owners who contact Columbia County Dispatch for matters related to water/sewer lines will be charges a $10 fee.

The minimum depth for rear yards will be changed from 20 feet to 10 feet.

The Planning Commission will have 30 days, rather than 14 days, to decide on a matter following a hearing.

Maximum heights for front property fences was changed from a maximum height of 3.5’ to 4’ to better accommodate premade fencing heights.

Items that are no longer relevant to the city and are proposed for repeal include codes referencing the Street Commissioner, Municipal Court Judge, unused budgeting funds, and codes related to the City Fire Department.

It was also proposed that references to the Public Arts Commission be removed because the commission was established for a three-year time period, specifically to apply for grants for Main Street public art.

Council suggested that code relating to the Economic Development Committee be reworded to refer to the Waitsburg Commercial Club, instead.

Tree Talk

The biggest bone of contention centered around proposed changes to tree-related items, especially whether or not the city should have a tree committee and, if so, what the authority of that committee would be. Hinchliffe said the original code granted full jurisdiction and oversight for all public trees to the tree committee.

The proposed code says the committee will be made up of two council members and three citizens at large, all appointed by the council. The committee will have no jurisdiction over diseased, dying or hazardous trees and the city staff retains authority for maintenance (including removal) of trees in the city parks and cemeteries.

“The last thing we need is to have to go to a committee and get permission to trim a tree or remove a diseased or dangerous tree. I tried to tailor the code to allow for that. Personally, I’d like to see the committee go away altogether,” Hinchliffe said.

“If it’s like some of the other committees we have, it’s an arm wrestle just to get a quorum together to get a decision made. When time is of the essence and you have a widow-maker hanging, you don’t want to have to get five people together to take care of something that, somewhere else, would be common maintenance,” he added.

Council member Kate Hockersmith approved of the revisions that allowed the city to address emergency situations but felt a committee is beneficial for “general overview” decisions, such as which trees, if any, should be allowed in parking strips and “doing fun stuff like creating walking tours of old trees of Waitsburg.”

“There is a lot of good that could come from a very well-crafted ordinance, that I doubt could be put together tonight. I think a tree committee could be a very valuable asset to this community,” Hockersmith said.

Mayor Gobel and Hinchliffe both expressed concern over past experiences in which committees receive enthusiastic support early on, but members can’t be contacted two, three, or four years down the road when decisions still need to be made.

Citizen Allison Bond said that committee members would be able to attend seminars and workshops that council and city crew members don’t have time for.

“The city runs on an army of volunteers and the army ebbs and flows. Right now we’re flush. Let us help you come up with a maintenance plan that will save money in the long run,” Bond said. “There are a lot of free resources and money available to us if we maintain a good committee and tree ordinances. If we can’t meet standards, the answer is not to lower the standard,” she added.

“When you have a tree committee like this that wants to learn and can give you advice about it, it’s a way to look at it in terms of planning - it’s almost like looking at them as buildings as opposed to plants, but they’re buildings that were put in by the forefathers. The city is working on safety, liability, and infrastructure. This is just a way of looking at it on another level,” said citizen Lane Hill.

It was agreed that a Tree Committee would be a strictly advisory committee that doesn’t make decisions on time sensitive issues but focuses on long-term plans for the city.

The code updates and repeals, amended to reflect discussion from the June 15 board meeting, will return as action items on the July 20 Waitsburg City Council agenda.