Benny Westcott
A city ordinance outlining requirements for beehives on properties will be updated after several residents testified that the current ordinance wasn’t in the best interest of local beekeepers.
The issue came to the Sweet Home City Council’s attention at their Tuesday, July 27, meeting. Citizens Ken and Fran Bronson expressed a desire to see the ordinance change after being informed of a violation from a code enforcement officer, who had received a complaint that the Bronsons’ hives were too close to a neighbor’s property line.
The city’s current code states that hives be kept at least 50 feet from property lines and not opened toward neighboring properties. In addition, the code outlines that a one-quarter acre be exclusively set aside for each hive, and that their overall location be, at minimum, one half of an acre. The Bronsons have four hives on their property.
“Frankly, we didn’t even know there was such a code for bees here in Sweet Home,” Ken said, although he admitted to the violation after becoming aware of the code, noting that his property spans only one-third of an acre. “I believe the existing code is primarily based on fear, not on the actions of honeybees. We’re talking about honeybees, not hornets, not yellowjackets. I’m around them every day. I just walk around them, and it’s not a problem at all.”
His wife, Fran, a former beekeeper with the Mid-Willamette Valley Beekeepers Association, voiced her approval of drafting a new ordinance.
“I find the current ordinance to be rather weird, because it’s saying that one-fourth of an acre is needed per hive,” she said. “Bees travel in a six-mile radius from their hive. There’s no way you can contain them. They’re going to go where their food is. And we could have bees come to our place that are from different areas.
“The fact that there is a colony of bees behind the White House and behind the governor’s house helps educate people that they aren’t dangerous,” she continued. “The only time that they’re going to be dangerous is if you go over there and beat their hive with a stick or knock them over. But we work with them all the time.”
StoryBook Farm master beekeeper Don Herbison, who takes care of hives for 15 clients, said that none of his clients have more than a half-acre of property.
“According to your ordinance, they’re all illegal,” he said.
“Including a former city councilman,” he added. That comment drew laughter from the city chamber.
He said that a property near 42nd Avenue and Osage Street used to house as many as 50 hives until last year.
“Down on Port Drive behind me, a guy has over 1,000 hives,” he continued. “So when you’re talking about bees traveling, they’re coming into the city from outside.”
Ultimately, the council voted unanimously to direct staff to draft an ordinance amending the current beekeeping ordinance, which was deemed out of date.
Councilor Susan Coleman was granted an excused absence from the meeting to attend to a family matter, so she did not vote.
LID vote
The council voted 5-1 to approve an ordinance for a local improvement district, or LID, in the Willow/Yucca street neighborhood. The LID would extend its city water infrastructure and service, as well as construct sidewalk and street improvements.
The dissenting vote was cast by Councilor Angelita Sanchez, who, like other councilors, expressed concern at prior meetings about the LID’s price for individual homeowners.
Councilor Dave Trask made some concluding comments after the ordinance passed. “I think it’s been well overdue,” he said. “They deserve to have good water. It’s not a right, necessarily, but I think you deserve to have that. To me, it makes common sense.”
The neighborhood currently has only one hydrant serving nearly 60 households and 100 structures, which makes it challenging for fire crews responding to area emergencies.
“If you have to lay 1,000 feet of five-inch hose and you’re still 500 feet short, it’s frustrating. Very frustrating,” Trask said.
The plan under the LID is to add six fire hydrants to the neighborhood, according to Staff Engineer Joe Graybill.
Street CrewPosition
The council also unanimously approved a supplemental budget to restore a full-time employee position on the city’s street crew that was vacated a year-and-a-half ago. The decision restores the crew to its full operational capacity.
In January 2020, one crew position was vacated as an employee moved into a maintenance mechanic role. The position was then left open for a period of time.
“The logic behind that was with COVID on-setting, we wanted to make sure that we would have enough money in that fund to continue to move forward with what we were planning, without having a four person staff and no operations,” said Finance Director Brandon Neish.
Now, the city has gone through two budget cycles with the street crew being down one full-time employee.
“We had done it again this year to kind of rebuild the fund balance in that fund and prepare for our future,” Neish said.
However, in the middle of July the city received a check from the State of Oregon for $140,118, which would help restore the full-time equivalent position.
“That check made up for the variance that we saw between what we had anticipated in state gas tax funds and what actually transpired in gas tax funds because people just weren’t driving during the COVID time,” Neish said.
In other action, the council unanimously approved a public-address permit to allow the Downtown Lounge to play amplified music in their outdoor venue from 8 p.m. to midnight Thursday, July 29; 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday, July 29-30; and 8 p.m. to midnight Sunday, July 31.