The case of Darrell Harper and his friends reveals the difficulty of trying to walk a fine line to avoid setting precedent that one does not want to meet later.
That’s the position the City Council found itself in last Tuesday, as described in our report on page 7. A group of Harper’s friends are trying to help him, but they want help from the city. Mr. Harper, who is disabled and is forced to use a wheelchair, had a tree recently fall on his singlewide manufactured home, which is not set up for his needs as it is.
So some of his friends and other members of the community have decided that, rather than get the existing home fixed, it would be better to remove the current structure and start over, building something that would be a better fit for Mr. Harper.
When they went to the City Council last week to ask for a waiver of the building fees for the project, the council said no to the request, suggesting that the applicants should apply for a grant to help cover some of the fees.
Council members said they want to be fair and they can’t favor one request over another, noting that if they were to waive the city fees, there are other wheelchair users in town who might not get a waiver.
It’s a question of fairness and we understand the council’s concern. It was a desire to be even-handed that prompted the council to create a new grant program a month ago to handle requests like this. The high school Booster Club asked for a waiver earlier this year to construct a new concessions stand at Husky Field.
The grant program awards up to $500 at a time, out of a $2,500 kitty.
Clearly, the grant program isn’t sufficient to cover the costs of these people trying to help a friend in need. A suggestion by a council member that they could make two requests, over two grant cycles, would allow them to cover approximately half the cost but could force further delays in fixing the problem: a home damaged by a tree with winter coming on.
We support the council’s efforts to be fair but we’re also concerned when the city can’t find a way to support what clearly is an act of charity. This isn’t a clubhouse. This is a home for a needy person and these are friends who are willing to devote time, effort and money to make this happen.
This kind of charitable spirit is good for our community.
The temptation in times like this can be to simply cut a “good-old-boy” deal and solve the problem. But that’s not the answer.
Doing things the “good-old-boy” way favors those in the loop over others and that’s not good city government.
This is public money we’re talking about here, as one council member pointed out last week. The fees that Harper’s friends are asking the city to waive represent the cost of operating the city’s building program, although the fee and the program are covered by the general fund.
The answer here is to find a way to help Mr. Harper’s friends help him. It could mean beefing up the grant fund so it can provide more than token aid in such cases. It’s one thing to pay fees to build a shed. It’s another to build a more ambitious structure and the grant fund clearly is less than adequate for providing true relief in cases like this.
We strongly support the council’s efforts to keep things fair. But cases like Mr. Harper’s, in which friends volunteer to build someone a house, don’t come along very often.
Charity €“ not handouts, but benevolent good will when someone is in need €“ is something the city should encourage and support.
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On an entirely different note, we want to congratulate the community on an excellent Oregon Jamboree.
We say “community” because it truly is a group effort. The some 700 volunteers, many of them local folks, are one reason those fans who effectively doubled the size of the city, had a great time, despite the heat, the lines and the other inconveniences that come with large crowds.
Fact is, though, it wasn’t just inside the walls of the festival that people were being supportive. In addition to a lot of welcome signs, local folks and businesses were out there trying to provide goods and services to take advantage of the economic opportunities the Jamboree presented. Seemed like there were many more “$5 Parking” signs out there this year, as people found ways to make a few bucks off what they had to offer.
Sure, some inconveniences come with the Jamboree, but we’re eager to see how the comunity can benefit from the revenue brought in by the festival. And we’re expecting to start seeing that happen more and more in the near future.