Megan Stewart
Addressing the Sweet Home City Council last week, Linn County Commissioner Will Tucker and Rep. Sherrie Sprenger urged Sweet Home residents to follow the guidelines as the county begins reopening, both to protect lives and to prevent the state from increasing restrictions again in Linn County.
Tucker and Sprenger, who was a Republican primary candidate for Tucker’s seat on the county Board of Commissioners, met with the council May 12 during its regular meeting to discuss reopening Sweet Home.
Since the meeting, Linn County has entered the first phase under the governor’s plan to begin reopening.
Sprenger told the council that she is “extraordinarily anxious to be done with” the inconvenient safety procedures put in place to protect citizens from COVID-19, noting that businesses “are going belly up;” but she urged the council to proceed with caution when moving forward with reopening the city.
Sprenger described May 15 as the “magical date” for rural counties to begin reopening various businesses and organizations, as long as gatherings consist of no more than 25 people. She recommended that as the community begins reopening that businesses consider how to best prevent numbers from spiking.
Tucker, who participated remotely, said the commissioners do not have the authority to reopen anything in Sweet Home without the governor’s approval.
“I’m not closing, I’m not opening anything in Sweet Home,” he said.
Tucker touched briefly on the question of the governor’s authority to impose the “stay-at-home” order, noting that some people have questioned whether Brown’s executive order is unconstitutional.
Sprenger said the governor has been using state statutes as her authority not the state constitution.
Monday, Baker County Circuit Judge Matthew B. Shirtcliff found that the governor had exceeded her authority and granted a preliminary injunction on Brown’s “stay-at-home” order, ruling that the order cannot extend beyond 28 days based on state statutes.
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum responded, announcing that her office would immediately appeal the decision to the Oregon Supreme Court.
“When the legislature adopted public health emergency statutes, it specifically said that it was not limiting the governor’s authority to deal with large-scale emergencies,” Rosenblum said. “With all respect, I believe the trial court’s grant of a preliminary injunction is legally incorrect. We will argue that the judge erred in his construction of the relevant statutes and that he abused his discretion in issuing the preliminary injunction. We will also be asking for an immediate stay of his order. I urge Oregonians to continue to comply with the measures in place. They are there to protect all of us, and they are working.”
Sprenger said if anyone had further questions about COVID-19 and how she will be responding to the situation, to reach out to her via email or phone, and she will do her best to respond promptly.
Present at the meeting were councilors Cortney Nash, Susan Coleman, Lisa Gourley, Mayor Greg Mahler, Diane Gerson, James Goble and Dave Trask.
In other business, the council:
n Approved an application to a matching grant program offered by Business Oregon, which is paying for it with $10 million in state and federal funding.
“We put in $1, they put in $1,” Larsen said. The fund’s intent is to assist businesses that have fallen through gaps in other relief responses. Qualifying business may be rural, sole proprietors, owned by minorities or women or have 25 or fewer employees. (See page 1.)
– Approved a positive annual performance evaluation for City Manager Ray Towry. (See page 7.)
– Held off discussion of an ordinance amendment that would allow Midway area residents to disconnect from city water and return to their wells. Councilors began discussing the issue during their regular meeting on April 28.
The city required some Midway residents to connect to city water in 1998 after chlorinated solvents used at a logging operation contaminated the wells.
The Department of Environmental Quality removed contaminated soil from the site, which is at the intersection of 44th Avenue and Main Street; and DEQ testing showed decreasing levels of contamination in the following years. The latest tests showed wells were clear of the contaminants.
City staff is continuing to collect additional information about wells and may be ready to present the information at the council’s next regular meeting, 6:30 p.m. on May 26.