Voting Guidelines

No problem. I believe we both want the best for the of the district As a board members it is our responsibility to represent the desire of the majority of the district regardless how we personally feel. We can work together to get your answers and move ahead whatever that direction is.

I will be back with answers as soon as I get something.

Jim

I wanted to get back immediately on the intent of my comments. I did not intend the response to be condensing. I apologize if it came across that way.

I will research with the rest of the board your answers

Jim

Thank you for providing me with the statute. I don't understand why you say an "assessment" as the board is proceeding with the improvements, which is fine if that's what the majority wants, I just want to make sure it's being done legally. Are there no other statutes for this type of road improvement on special road districts? I ask because if I read the statute you provided correctly, this is the way to proceed if there is no other statute on the matter. Yes, the statute does not require property owners to "vote", but read this section:

"If the governing body determines that the local improvement shall be made, when the estimated cost thereof is ascertained on the basis of the contract award or the departmental cost of the local government, the governing body shall determine whether the property benefited shall bear all or a portion of the cost. The recorder or other person designated by the governing body shall prepare the estimated assessment to the respective lots within the assessment district and file it in the appropriate office of the local government. Notice of the estimated assessment shall be mailed or personally delivered to the owner of each lot proposed to be assessed. The notice shall state the amounts of the estimated assessment proposed on that property and shall fix a date by which time objections shall be filed with the recorder. Any objection shall state the grounds for the objection. The governing body shall consider the objections and grounds and may adopt, correct, modify or revise the estimated assessments."

I am confused as to why I keep being told a vote isn't required, it sounds very condescending. I just want to be informed on the voting guidelines, knowing when a vote isn't necessary, knowing when a vote is required, knowing what the board can decide without the property owners’ consent, etc. What's wrong with that?

ORS 223.389 - it lays out the process for an assessment and there is no vote required.

Yes, you are correct that there are times where the home owners do not get to vote on road improvements in special districts. However, the SDAO told me that all depended on how the project was going to be financed. You state that with this type of funding the board is not required to have any kind of voting what so ever, can you point me to the statute that specifies that please?

Great explanation, Jim. Thank you. I agree that the Oregon statues governing this stuff are confusing. I'll try to explain a little further. One way to pay for any road improvement would be to raise property taxes - either the base rate we pay for PASRD or to pass a levy specifically for the project. This has been tried before in PASRD most recently in 2008 I think, where it failed 48 to 41. It costs PASRD about $2000 to put on the ballot. An additional concern that has repeatedly been raised was that those PASRD owners who live outside of Deschutes county are not able to vote, whereas renters and other non owners are able to vote. Board records indicate that paying for a road improvement via a tax increase has been proposed and not passed, despite surveys indicating support, four times over the last 30+ years. For that reason the board set out to find a different approach to funding the proposed road improvement project where 1) each owner would get one vote per lot owned, and 2) the cost could be allocated equally per lot owned. Working with the Special Districts Association of Oregon (SDAO) we learned that we could use the Assessment process to fund the road improvement project equally per lot owned, however, we were surprised to learn that the assessment process does not require any voting whatsoever. It has been an extraordinary amount of work by our all-volunteer board and committee to even get to this point and the board agreed that we didn't want to continue towards an assessment without being confident that a majority of owners were in support. The first and second surveys seemed to indicate support for continued investigation and development of a possible project, by about a 2:1 margin, but those were just surveys and we had not yet asked directly if owners were in support of Otta Seal or wanted to maintain the roads as is, with existing tax revenue. Concerns were raised in meeting that rather than another survey we needed a secret vote, that all could have confidence in. As Jim described above, we developed a secret voting proposal, presented it in a meeting and decided to proceed that way. Then in the next meeting additional concerns were raised that the ballots should be certified or registered to have confidence in an accurate count. At that point someone suggested Ryder Election Services and we discovered they could administer a secret ballot and certify the results for less than the cost of sending certified or registered mail. So the vote was conducted - as an advisory vote only. The purpose of that vote was to let the board know if a majority of the owners wanted to proceed with the Otta Seal road improvement project or if a majority wanted to maintain our roads as they are maintained today, within the existing tax revenue only. 142 ballots were sent, one ballot per lot owned. 124 were returned, 70 votes were in support of the Otta Seal project, 51 votes were in support of maintaining our roads as they are today, within existing tax revenue, and 3 ballots were returned blank.

These results tell the board that a majority of owners are in support of the Otta seal road improvement project. Therefor, the board is moving forward with the project. Next steps, happening simultaneously, are securing the financing and preparing to send Notices of Proposed Assessments to every owner. The statute then requires the board to hold a hearing to consider any objections to the proposed assessment, and then proceed with interim financing and construction.

I hope that explanation is somewhat helpful. Sorry it wasn't more timely. I've been out of town helping my Dad with knee replacement surgery.

I also want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all the volunteers board and committee members who have worked so hard to develop the road improvement project, find a different way to pay for it that what had been tried so many times before, and get as many owners as possible engaged in the process so that everyone had an opportunity to be heard.

From Jim

The short answer is that district was not required to have a vote to proceed with the project. It was decided that the board would conduct an advisory vote to let the landowners state the preferences. Thus, the December advisory vote was completed. The ballot and results are on the web.

A summary of the process the board went through to insure everyone was informed, had an opportunity to state their opinion, is outlined below.

The board had conducted 2 surveys to gauge support for a road improvement project. In both surveys the vote was to proceed.

In the July board meeting Resolution 4 was passed to conduct a secret ballot. (Minutes on Web) There was much discussion and concern by landowners that the results of the vote should not be public.

In the August meeting Anne presented a process to conduct the secret ballot (Minutes on Web)

In the Sept board meeting Resolution 5 was passed stating “commit to count votes as follows: 50% plus one of the total votes cast and received post marked by the “return by” date published on the ballot will constitute a majority. The above resolution was approved and declared adopted on the 8th day of September 2020”. In that meeting it was agreed to mail the secret ballots by registered mail in order to confirm they are actually received by the property owners. Annie’s ballot procedures were be put on the district website.

The October meeting the process for the open meeting on the project, mailing options etc. was discussed. It was decided to use Bend Mailing service since the cost of registered or certified was more expensive that using the service that could track the ballots mailed plus the would handle the postage mailing etc. for a few dollars more.

To answer your other question on why Ryder Election services was used for vote counting it was agreed that an outside agency would have the transparency requested and assurance to everyone that the vote counted was accurate and certified.

I hope this explains the “advisory” vote, process and the second question on RES If not please contact me directly and I will work will you on more details.

Thanks Jim

From Jim Becker

I wanted to follow up with you on the forum and email.

As I said in the email I have contacted the the SDAO for any information they might have. To date no answer

The main difference between the information on the LID program we both found and what I know at this point is the vote taken in December was an "advisory vote" to inform the board of how many landowners wanted the project to move ahead given the information known then.

Information on those costs are on the web pages under "supplemental information Sheet". or another post on the forum

I will keep you and the forum advised if I get any information.

Thanks for the question.