Camas received a $100,000 grant to do a Housing Study. I did a post on Next Door I’ll include below so I won’t belabor that. What I want to talk about is the response I got from the consultant, and what it might mean.
I made the point you can’t do a Housing Study until you know where the employment center of a City is. Simple? Not in Camas right now. This City seems hell bent on creating a new employment center on the North Shore. You figure any study of the need and location of affordable housing is highly dependent on where the jobs will be.
City staff are still marching along the path of ignoring Downtown in favor of the North Shore. One expects this message staff gives to this Consultant: Do your Housing Study per the outcome of Camas’ big employment center moving to the North Shore. Ignore our Downtown: That is only for cute shops and services and the remaining activity of the Mill. Nothing more will happen at the Mill.
I sent the consultant a thoughtful email along with a link to the Guest Column I did for the Post-Record. I’ve had great reaction to it over the past few months. Most has been thanks for bringing this core planning issue up. Since it was published the City had its first “visioning” workshop for the North Shore. We were all surprised how the popular sentiment expressed was the North Shore is not the place for massive growth in Camas. City staff doesn’t talk about this. Rather, people are making “excuses” for why this happened and why it doesn’t matter and doesn’t change plans for North Shore growth.
I was flat out told: Untill the City Council says otherwise, City staff is not hearing this direction from the community.
A question I put out is “why do we bother having this participation other than it is required?” As I see it, the City and this Consultant have private meetings to develop the roadmap. The consultant will do their study to support this roadmap. The public participation will be to “sell” this roadmap to the public.
Exactly what was done for the Aquatic Center.
The City of Camas seismically shifted this last election. Mayor Turk, North Shore development supporter, was removed as was her North Shore related project. We have a new Mayor and a new Councilmember. Both talked about taking a second look at the North Shore/Downtown relationship. Yet staff plods on spending money on a direction we don’t want to go.
I tried to provide background to this consultant based on 40-years of professional work. I was politely told: “If you need more information in the meantime, please contact Sarah Fox at the City (copied on this email).” I answered back, politely, “I would hope your “case of first impression” about this critical Housing Study, and the where this City’s residents are, is not limited to staff.”
Fellow Camasonians, our work is far from done. Our new Mayor and councilmember need our support to finish the job of making this City responsive to its citizens. Let them know how you feel and support their efforts. Make Camas our City. Say no to another backroom deal like the Aquatic Center.
Here’s what I sent the consultant, copying the Mayor.
Melissa — Congratulations on getting the Camas contract. Decisions on our housing needs and styles will drive our City’s future. The study you are preparing will provide key information on that future.
I want to introduce myself as an involved Camas resident active in planning issues. Specifically, whether Camas should respect its mill-oriented Downtown roots, or see the employment center shift to the upland North Shore of Lacamas Lake. I wrote a guest column for the local paper. I’ll include the link and won’t repeat that information.
I will say this is fast becoming a large and looming issue. The decision last year to do the North Shore sub-area plan, instead of Downtown, was controversial and close. Since that time we have a new Mayor. This was through a most incredible and unheard reaction to Camas’ direction. This Mayor may be more centered to the type of Downtown-oriented outcome I talk about in my column.
The current staff position is not reflective of this shift in direction. Per Sara Fox in an e-mail to me in response to my guest column, as well as the outcome of a public “visioning” workshop that surprised everyone: "it is my job to follow the direction of our elected council. That is the role of staff.” I have asked the new Council to revisit this decision.
Camas is at a true fork in the road. Staff, led by the North Shore landowners, is still leading towards the North Shore. The community may be in a different place.
I hope you design your public participation sensitive to this issue, and reach out to many people roused into robust involvement resulting from the unheard of defeat, by 90%, of an ill-advised Aquatic/Community center that veered away from Camas’ Historic and present Downtown. The rejection of an unopposed Mayor, who was an active supporter of North Shore development, by a last-minute write-in candidate frames the larger issue. He beat the sitting Mayor by 12%. Unheard of. It’s all about change and hearing the people. They spoke.
I look forward to talking with you about this. Welcome to Camas!
https://www.camaspostrecord.com/news/2020/jan/23/camas-must-plan-the-entire-city-2/
Great comment and I don't know the answer to that. I don't know if Mayor Barry has communicated to staff about the status of the North Shore or any changes to the plan. There's many balls in the air right now. I've asked the question and made the request during public comment that they put it on an agenda and discuss publicly. I think the answer is nothing will change until the Mayor makes it change. Why should anything change?
I also sent the Mayor a letter requesting a "pause" in the North Shore process on January 15th copying the Council and planning staff. I have not received an official response back. I'm attaching the letter.
I met with the Mayor since this letter and talked to him further on several occasions. He was present at the visioning workshop and saw firsthand the surprising outcome.
I understand the many issues out there and the COVID-19 crisis thrown in his lap so I'm understanding. I'll keep at it, and encourage others to do so as well. This is too important to the fundamental future of this City we all have chosen as home. This Housing Study and the response was a reminder to us all that behind the scenes the same old stuff keeps happening. It will keep happening until we the public insist on follow-through from the election.
I appreciate your point of view and your effort to communicate across all channels that reach Camas neighbors Randal,
You mentioned above that "Per Sara Fox in an e-mail to me in response to my guest column, as well as the outcome of a public “visioning” workshop that surprised everyone: "it is my job to follow the direction of our elected council. That is the role of staff.”
We have a strong mayor government style in Camas which, as I understand it, means that staff follows the guidance of the elected mayor and then they ask council to approve spending in an oversight capacity? Does anyone else feel that Ms. Fox's statement about her job being to follow council direction is incorrect and "giving away the game" a bit here?
I wonder if Mayor Barry or his wife are reading along with any of this? I hope so.
I never got to participate in that subarea selection process. Were there presentations made that outlined each of the specific subarea plans being considered? Downtown, Grass Valley, one down on the Waterfront, and maybe a 4th one?
There was the overall Camas 2035 Comprehensive Plan finished in 2016. Unfortunately 2 years before activity at the Mill substantially changed. The City can do one sub-area plan at a time with current resources. North Shore was chosen over the Downtown in a very close vote just before the Aquatic Center rose as the defining issue for Camas. It gave an opportunity to take a new look at the direction of the City and that direction needs some course correcting. With the changes at the Mill, and a growing awareness of the impacts a massive employment center at the North Shore would have, the path ahead seems obvious. I'm not saying we should do nothing with the North Shore, but that whatever happens be done with full knowledge of the relationship between development there, and Downtown where you would minimize the impacts of that growth.
At a public comment session before the world unraveled I specifically asked the Mayor and Council to reconsider that decision. I have heard nothing back. Again, part of the problem with our public process. Why is it there if there's no feedback provided to the public?
Very well put Scott. It doesn't have to be that way. People like you, Phillip, and our new Mayor and Councilmember decided this wasn't inevitable and won! You inspired me, and I'm sure inspired many others to push back in a positive but disruptive manner. As this City faces unknown financial futures, I bet most everyone is breathing a sigh of relief we don't have $78 million in bonds that have first dibs on our money. Thank you.
We need to keep this going forward. We must insist the public have access not just to staff, but the surrogate staff that does so much of the work. I don't want someone to say its the first they've heard about it. At least the Housing Study consultant, whether staff wanted it or not, has been exposed to some reality in our community.
I found out about this Housing Study only because I happened to be at the Council meeting. I'm glad I did. I now realize I need to look at every Council agenda and have a means, along with people like you, to get the word out when needed.
We need to support each other to make this City responsive. We have to support our new Mayor too. Go Barry!
What a great read, Randall. Thank you for sharing.
I think many of us have felt this sense of artificial inevitability of the North Shore project for some time. When planners know they can't come out with the total price tag all at once because voters will completely reject it, they resort to creatively slow playing the ask in smaller pieces. Each piece you get, brings you closer to the point of no return. Classic project creep, some may say.
At some point, when the public finally says enough, their argument pivots to "but we're this far in already" or "we've spent so much already, we can't back out now" or "we've spent years planning for this, we're really close. We have to see it through."
While the staff seems to deflect directional ownership of this project to the City Council, oddly enough in a city with a strong mayor charter, I think the staff may be in more control of this process through their proxy consultants than the Council or the Mayor.