News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The Sisters School District wants a November vote to annex the approximately 98-acre site of the new Sisters High School into the City of Sisters.
School board members Bill Reed and Heather Wester, along with school superintendent Steve Swisher, made their case for an early "authorization" vote to the Sisters City Council in a Thursday, August 9, workshop.
The city charter requires a vote of the city residents to annex any land.
The school district says the November vote is important to keep school construction on its timetable.
"We're currently scheduled to go to bid in April," said Reed. "If we don't have our land use issues in order ... we can't go to bid."
The request puts the city council in a bit of a bind because Deschutes County will not yet have decided whether to allow the land into the city's Urban Growth Boundary. An application to the county will be heard on October 2.
A November vote would ask voters to approve annexation contingent upon the land use process being completed.
The city conducted two such "authorization" votes in 1997 for land that was not yet in the UGB: once for the school district's Lundgren Mill property and once for Barclay Meadows Business Park. The state Department of Land Conservation and Development gave the city a severe scolding, essentially for putting the cart before the horse.
Mayor Steve Wilson promised not to do it again.
The school district contends -- and the city council agrees -- that there's nothing illegal about making the annexation vote contingent. According to city planner Neil Thompson, DLCD representative Laren Wooley has verbally indicated that the agency won't stand in the way if the city does it again.
But Wooley won't put that in writing -- and that makes Mayor Wilson and the council uneasy.
"If it's no big deal, why won't Laren put it in writing?" Wilson said. "I have no problem accommodating the school district if Laren would release me (from the promise not to conduct authorization votes)."
City councilor Lon Kellstrom expressed some concern that the land use bureaucracy might "slap us around" in pending comprehensive planning issues if the city doesn't take the agency's preferences into account.
DLCD is generally opposed to the practice of voting on annexations at all, according to Thompson.
"There's a certain amount of peevishness with DLCD," he said. "They don't like these annexation votes. They think they have no place in the process."
Sisters voters approved a charter amendment requiring annexation votes as a means of ensuring that they were fully informed about plans for the subject lands and that citizens would have a direct voice in determining the shape of the city.
There have been several annexation proposals, including one that annexed all the land within the UGB. All have passed by wide margins.
Thompson said he believes the spirit of the city annexation ordinance is met by the school district's request. After two bond elections, he said, the public is amply informed about the plans for the land. An "authorization" election leaves it up to voters to give the green light to annexation.
The school district is not taking success for granted, although city voters joined those in outlying precincts in approving the bond for a new high school.
"It would appear unlikely that the City of Sisters voters would turn us down," Bill Reed said. "But, on the other hand, stranger things could happen."
Should a November vote fail, the district could try again in March. Any later election could push back the construction start date. The district is concerned that bids could come in higher if they were placed during the busy summer construction season.
City councilors and school board members agreed to seek a clearer commitment from DLCD this week as to whether a November vote will put the city at odds with the land use agency.
The school district will come before the city council for a public hearing on the matter on August 23. The school district must file for the November ballot by September 6.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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