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HomeMy WebLinkAboutG-627 Ockert 12-24-2023 Current Planning Public Comments and Testimony Please fill out the form, below,to submit written comments on a pending land use application or an appeal of a tree removal request.All written comments and materials are due by the deadline listed on the Notice. Written submittals received by the deadline will be entered into the public record of file and will be considered by the decision body. Contact the staff coordinator listed on the Notice if you have questions. Case Number* Please see Notice for correct LU or tree appeal number. LU 23-0002/AP 23-04:A request for an RP District(wetland) Unavoidable Crossing to Install a Sewer Line and Serial Lot Line Adjustments. If you do not see your case here the comment period is not open. Please check back later. Case Number- LU 23-0002/AP 23-04:A request for an RP District(wetland) Unavoidable Crossing Verification* to Install a Sewer Line and Serial Lot Line Adjustments. Please re-select your case number to ensure it routes to the appropriate case. First Name* Carole Last Name* Ockert Address Street Address 910 Cumberland Road Address Line 2 City State/Province/Region Lake Oswego OR Postal/Zip Code 97034 Email* fanfh-carole@nwlink.com Stance:* r Support C' Opposition r Neither for nor against Please type your comments below,or you may upload a PDF of your comments. If you have other media types, please contact planning@lakeoswego.city to coordinate its addition to the public record. Comments File Upload redacted memo testimony.pdf 58.96KB PDF format only Submitted by Carole Ockert My written testimony is responding to item G-621, Meyers, 12/18/23, unredacted memo March 30th 2021 beginning at page 56 and unredacted memo Oct 23rd, 2014 revised Oct. 28th, 2014 beginning at page 60. Both of these memos in the redacted form appeared in the record as part of item G-580. According to G-580 the redacted memos were sent to Josh Henle as part of a response to a public records request. An appeal of that redaction was filed with the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office on the morning of Nov. 20th, 2023 and the City of Lake Oswego was appropriately noticed. Deputy City Attorney Boone noted this filing in a response to a question from the floor on the night of Nov. 20th. The unredacting of these two memos now made available to the public to read, G-621 must be consequential. First they were specifically blocked from the public purview. For an attorney with the City of Lake Oswego to block two memos that relate to such an important public review in a public hearing must mean it is necessary for legal reasons to do so. If we are to have confidence in our City Attorney, we must assume that to be the case. It can of course be reasonable that a citizen file an appeal with the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office as allowed by law to double check that, but we, the public, would expect that after such a review, the appeal would be dismissed and the action of the City Attorney would be upheld. G-621 calls that logic into question. Here we have an appeal filed to review said redaction and after the filing of that appeal and before the continued hearing for LU 23-0002, the two memos in question are unredacted. I don’t know why the two memos were unredacted. - It would be concerning if an appeal had been conducted by the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office and it was found the City of Lake Oswego redacted them without due cause. - It would be just as concerning if the memos were unredacted to avoid an investigation because there was concern on the part of the City that the investigation by the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office would find the memos should never have been redacted in the first place. Looking to the content of the two now unredacted memos for possible answers on the ‘now you can’t see it’ to ‘now you can’ public record experience, what we see is justification of a game plan to end run our City code written by the then City Attorney Pro Tem, Evan Boone. The question posed in the March 30th 2021 memo states: “May a property owner bifurcate a building permit application process on a lot that has a Sensitive Lands Overlay District, in order to avoid the applicability of the Utility Standard (LOC 50.06.008) to bring sewer to the site even through it is more than 300 ft. away from the existing sewer main?” To highlight, “May a property owner…. on a lot that has a Sensitive Lands Overlay District, in order to avoid the applicability of…..” There is a phrase made infamous in Lake Oswego by a member of the development community during a Planning Commission public hearing. He said in testimony that developers work to ‘Cheat And Beat’ the code. The room and commissioners gasped that night, not because we didn’t know that happened in our city, but because there it had been said openly, in public, on the record. “IN ORDER TO AVOID the applicability of…” calls the phrase ‘Cheat and Beat’ to mind. But the step-by-step response explaining the validity of the answer “Yes” to the question posed in the memo written by the City Attorney Pro Tem, does read like a game play on a white board in a locker room. You can almost see the x’s and arrows directing the play moving down the field. When it comes to our Lake Oswego city code application, we have the Code Interpretation Log as explained below on the city website. The very existence of an interpretation log speaks to the concept that code outcome can in-fact be the direct result of code ‘interpretation’. We would hope that staff is invested in code interpretation that guides the outcome to achieve the original intent of our code, not in drafting a play to “AVOID” (word actually used in the March 30th 2021 memo’s premise question) the intent of our code! General: Interpretations of Code text are sometimes necessary by staff. This Interpretation Log collects some of the staff interpretations – it is impossible to document every interpretation made by every staff person as they administer the City Code. Some interpretations are dependent upon the underlying facts of the situation that resulted in the written interpretation below, but the key fact may not be included within the description of the interpretation. Interpretations are not formally adopted (except for Formal Interpretations under the Community Development Code) and are subject to revision or rescission for a number of reasons, i.e., change of law, change of method, or a prior interpretation is reexamined and determined to be incorrect. If you have a question about how a code provision is interpreted, please contact the Department and explain your specific situation or general inquiry. In summary: 1.The unredaction of these memos after an appeal was filed with the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office is troubling. 2. The question that was presented highlighting the concept, “on a lot that has a Sensitive Lands Overlay District, in order to avoid the applicability of” should have resulted in an interpretive code path that would uphold the intent of Lake Oswego City Code, not undermine the code we rely on to direct and implement good development outcome for our City and our residents.