UPDATE: Please vote to Keep Jim Nicita by voting NO on recall. The deadline to vote is this coming Tuesday December 6th. It is now too late to vote by mail, but you can still use the ballot drop boxes at:
Oregon City City Hall 625 Center St., Oregon City
County Elections Office 1710 Red Soils Ct., Oregon City
I am writing today because I need your help. Please feel free to forward this website to friends and associates.
Ballots have been mailed out for a special election to recall me from my seat on the Oregon City Commission. I am respectfully asking you to vote “NO” on your ballot.
My Track Record in Office
I am very proud of my 3 years in office so far. I think I have gone the extra mile to serve the people in Oregon City. My detailed constituent letters have been an example. I don’t just use them as public relations, but to inform the voters; in fact I usually send out primary documents regarding city business so people can see directly what is going on in City Hall.
Highlights of my term in office include:
- Increasing support for the police department leading to a new chief, several new officers, greatly increased morale, and improved response times.
- Standing up for fairness in labor negotiations, which has earned me the endorsement against this recall of local 350-2 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
- Holding urban renewal accountable.
- Supporting a downtown farmer’s market, and the revitalization of Main Street.
- Protecting the interests of existing small and local businesses.
- Enacting stronger historic preservation ordinances, such as our “demolition by neglect” ordinance I first put forth as a member of the Historic Review Board.
- Bringing Concordia University to Oregon City to create educational partnerships with Oregon City High School and Clackamas Community College.
- Championing reinstatement of citizen involvement.
- Launching an effort to ask Amtrak to create an Oregon City stop for the interstate “Coast Starlight” train.
- Standing with the citizens on annexations and smart growth.
- Increasing transparency in city government decision-making.
- Strengthening retention policies for important city government records.
- Advocating a Clackamette Cove strategy that benefits both people and wildlife.
Because jobs and economic development are a focus of citizen concern in these tough times, I want to point out particularly the role I played in the City Commission’s creation and funding of the position of Economic Development Manager for Oregon City. I took a leadership role in adding the creation of the position to the Oregon City Commission’s City’s Goals and Objectives during its work session in February 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za_QV1nvXXg
In addition, I made an effort to raise support in the community for making the hire, for example by writing this opinion piece:
http://www.oregoncitynewsonline.com/opinion/story.php?story_id=124828671112606200
This fall the City undertook a competitive national search for a new economic development manager. We received approximately 80 resumes from around the country. We hired a talented candidate who will be working on a vast array of economic development and job opportunities.
Origins of the Recall Effort
The motive for the recall is my opposition to The Rivers mall proposal that fell apart over the summer. As the attached editorial against the recall in the Oregon City News, points out, however, when I campaigned for City Commission in 2008, it was part of my platform. As a City Commissioner, I have been very faithful to the pledges I made to the citizens of Oregon City as a candidate.
As evidenced by his organizing e-mails, and by the recall petitions themselves, the primary leader of the recall effort is our former mayor Dan Fowler. Mr. Fowler is a real estate developer, and has substantial landholdings adjacent to and near the Rossman Landfill where The Rivers mall would have been built. During the negotiations on The Rivers last spring, he was quoted as saying in regards to the City Commission: “[W]e expect them to get it done. If they don’t, we will work to remove them from office. It is that simple.”
http://www.oregoncitynewsonline.com/news/story.php?story_id=131179124358708600
I respectfully ask people to consider the implications for our democracy if the most wealthy and powerful members of a community can succeed in removing an elected official for being faithful to campaign pledges to the people.
My Answer to the Recall
Since this recall effort began in late July, Mr. Fowler and his allies have tried to paint me – one member of a 10-member urban renewal commission (URC) – as singularly responsible for the demise of The Rivers, including its proposed anchor tenant Cabela’s.
In fact, the urban renewal commission negotiated in good faith, and worked to protect your interests. My skepticism as a candidate regarding The Rivers continued into the negotiating sessions. But I was one voice out of a diverse group of 10 urban renewal commissioners, and the range of opinion on the board made for a healthy discussion and debate.
As part of my ongoing and consistent efforts to increase governmental transparency, I took the leadership role in getting the URC to make public its negotiating executive sessions on the The Rivers, so the people can know that the urban renewal commission was negotiating in good faith and keeping their interests in the forefront. The audio recordings of these sessions and transcriptions of them can be found here.
The minutes demonstrate that our urban renewal attorney was clearly concerned that urban renewal might inflate the sales price for the landfill, at taxpayer risk. This is why he counseled the URC to demand up front that the developer and the property owner of the landfill have a signed sales agreement in place:
“The consensus view of the staff and myself was these are the issues that we think are really policy level. The first one is the developer changed the language that used to say they had a contract to buy the property. Now it says they don’t, and they’re going to enter into a contract (to buy the property). The immediate question is should you (as the urban renewal agency) invest your time, money and effort in negotiating when they don’t control the land? The second aspect of that is, if you become committed publicly to the project, what is the landowner going to do during the negotiations over the purchase price for the land with the developer? I would be concerned that it would be a signal to the landowner to take a very hard position if you’re already committed to it.” (URC transcript, April 6, 2011, pp. 2-3.)
The URC did in fact demand to see a signed sales agreement up front. The developer and the landowner were not able to come to an agreement.
We will never know what transpired in the private negotiations between the landowner and the developer. Perhaps the landowner was asking too high a price. Perhaps the developer did not have financing or committed tenants. Perhaps the project wasn’t penciling in these tough economic times.
The transcripts provide some evidence. After the negotiations foundered, the landfill owner disclosed to Oregon City’s city manager that he was asking roughly $14 million for the landfill property. (URC transcript, July 12, 2011, pp. 1-2.) According to this current Clackamas County Assessor’s tax statement for the landfill, the Assessor has the landfill valued at just above $2 million.
I can in honesty state that had the developer and landfill owner presented the URC with a sales contract with a price between $12-$15 million for the landfill, I would have voted against it, and certainly voted against it without a referral to the voters as to whether they might think supporting that kind of sales prices was an appropriate use of urban renewal.
The transcripts also show concern on the part of the URC as to whether the project would be able to pay off the requested urban renewal bonds. Contrary to earlier rosy predictions that The Rivers would generate new tax increment to fund other downtown projects, the deliberations reveal concerns that the tax increment from the project would even be able to pay off its own bonds. (URC transcript, April 6, 2011, pp. 36-53.) (URC transcript, April 20, 2011, pp. 45-60.)
The transcriptions show the URC, staff, and legal counsel wrestling with these and other tough issues. But the idea that one urban renewal commission member out of 10 – even a consistently skeptical one – of being able to “block” the entire deal is just not credible.
If there were such concerns, the landowner and developer could simply have had a contingency in their sales contract. Any home sale contract typically has a contingency that the buyer has to get a mortgage. Likewise, their sales contract could simply have had as a contingency that the developer obtain financing, including the urban renewal financing the developer was requesting from the URC.
If the developer and landowner had agreed upon a sales contract, with a sales price acceptable to the URC, and the developer had obtained committed tenants and financing, The Rivers would have drowned any skepticism I might have expressed.
Recall Implications to Consider
I ask Oregon City voters to keep a few things in mind as you consider this recall vote.
A. The recall petition complaint with the Secretary of State
The recall effort was not on track to succeed. They weren’t getting enough signatures. So, late in the effort, the recall campaign convinced a company in Canby, Pioneer Pump Co., to donate six thousand dollars ($6,000) to the recall effort. See the Secretary of State’s accounting here:
With the $6,000, the recall effort hired The Oregon Signature Gathering Company to make up the difference in signatures. This company collected approximately one-third of the recall signatures. But how did they accomplish this?
A complaint has been filed with the Secretary of State regarding the tactics of the paid signature gatherers, who allegedly used the misleading pitch that the recall petition was instead a petition to “Bring Back Cabela’s.”
Here is the complaint, which includes a photograph:
http://keepnicita.com/recall-complaint/
We need to consider the implications of the use of “big money” in going after elected officials who are true to their campaign promises to constituents.
I am asking your assistance in maintaining the integrity of our elections and democratic process. The Elections official looking into this complaint is Alana Cox. If you experienced this type of recall petitioning activity, whether or not you signed the petition, I urge to write her at this e-mail address: alana.j.cox@state.or.us. Your communication will remain confidential.
B. If I am recalled, what comes next?
People in Oregon City need to know this: if I am recalled, you will not get to vote on my replacement. Under our City Charter, vacancies in office created by recall are filled by an appointment made only by the remaining City Commissioners. There is a risk that the remaining four Commissioners will be split 2-2 on my replacement, and the controversy of this recall could then roll over into a controversy over who replaces me.
C. Is the recall an attempt to take over the urban renewal commission?
You may be wondering why the recall organizers don’t just wait until the 2012 elections next year and run a candidate against me then.
The timing of the recall now suggests that a motive of the recall effort is to take over the urban renewal commission. That commission consists of the five City Commissioners and another five citizen members appointed by the City Commission. The three-year term of one of the citizen members of the URC ends at the end of December.
If the recall organizers succeed in a recall against me, they will likely try to pressure the City Commission into appointing a replacement City Commissioner who is sympathetic to their interests. If they succeed, then they will in turn use their new City Commission majority to appoint a citizen member to the URC who is also sympathetic to their interests.
The URC as currently constituted is a responsible guardian of the public interest. We should not allow the URC to be taken to a place where private interests take precedence over the public interest.
A Hopeful Future
Despite the controversy we are currently mired in, I see a hopeful future beyond the recall election date of December 6th.
We have the opportunity to move ahead on an economic development policy that is forward-looking, recognizes the economic realities of today’s world, is locally self-reliant, takes advantage of Oregon City’s unique strengths, and is guided by maximum participation and input. Highlights might include:
- Taking advantage of Oregon City’s location between the Portland metro area and the rural areas of Clackamas County and the Willamette Valley to become a center of value-added food processing for small and medium-sized farmers.
- Create an “economic gardening” program to help existing businesses grow and create sustainable jobs. Our new economic development manager has a specialty and track record in this field.
- Ask the citizens what they want to see for the Blue Heron Mill Site and the north end of downtown, and then other areas in the city. The urban renewal commission has budgeted funds for such “visioning”.
- Allow citizens the right to vote on urban renewal. A majority of Oregon City voters just joined the rest of Clackamas County voters in passing a measure requiring voter approval of urban renewal. Similarly the City of Beaverton has just successfully completed an extensive visioning process for its urban renewal area, and then allowed a vote on the resulting plan, including its financing. The voters passed the measure. We can do the same for our citizens.
Will You Help?
The ballots for this recall special election (which, by the way, will cost you the taxpayer $10,000 to $15,000) will arrive in the mail beginning Saturday, November 19th. We are putting the finishing touches on a website (www.keepnicita.com) and a Facebook Page, “Keep Nicita Working for Us.” They will be updated continually, so please check in these sites as the vote progresses leading up to the election date of December 6th, and please share them with your friends.
We will be fighting for every vote until 8 p.m. on election day. We have lots of volunteer opportunities for door knocking, phone banking, etc. Please feel free to throw me a reply to this e-mail if you would like to volunteer.
We also are busy fundraising. Our Committee is called “Keep Nicita”. The Oregon Political Tax Credit allows a 100% credit on your tax return for next year for contributions up to $50 (or $100 per couple). They can be sent to:
Keep Nicita Committee
302 Bluff Street
Oregon City, OR 97045
Thank You!
James Nicita
Oregon City Commissioner
