On August 13, 2024 the Oak Harbor city council voted against the will of the people to pass changes to Ordinance 1999, which greatly impacts an election provision in the city code that previously gave the people the right to vote any time the city council disposes of parkland. City council choose to pass amendments to the code language which create significant caveats that allow the city to dispose of parkland without a vote to the people.

For those of you who may not have been following this issue, here's a brief rundown of events:

Ordinance 1999, which gave the public the right to vote on the disposal of any and all public parkland, was originally passed in 1997 by the Oak Harbor city council to stop a private developer from building a hotel on Flintstone Park.

Earlier this year, the city of Oak Harbor received a pre-application from a local developer for a development project on a private parcel adjacent to Hal Ramaley Park, a public park. Initially, the developer put forth a plan for 15 to 17 units of full-time housing with a brewpub underneath, which fit the footprint of the owned parcel and did not require any additional space.

However, in his presentation to council on July 24, city planner Ray Lindenberg told council that he told the developer his original project was "technically up to our standards" but the city "would like to see more" in that location. The city "went back and forth a little bit with emails and conversations" and the developer came back with a plan for a hotel, the first draft of which also fit into the footprint of the owned parcel.

According to Lindenberg, the developer came back with a second draft of the hotel that just happened to include a conference center desired by the city council, which would require an additional 2,700 square feet of public park land to build. The only thing standing in their way? The election provision requirement in municipal code 01.30.010 requiring the city to put the disposition of parkland to a public vote.

In response, the city proposed the complete removal of the election provision in the municipal code, calling the election requirement and the people's voting right "an impediment to development of city-owned properties."

Since that initial May 21 meeting, the Oak Harbor city council has received at least one hundred written and oral public comments asking the council to keep the election provision as it was and keep the people's voting right intact. In opposition with overwhelming public sentiment, the city council voted to change the code on August 13 to accommodate this single hotel project with language that they considered a "compromise" with public comment.

The amended code language passed by council on August 13 allows the council to circumvent the election requirement if, among other things, "the city council reviews a development agreement between the city and private entity and determines that; the property exchange is calculated at a one to-one ratio of land area or greater in benefit to the city" or "the city council reviews a development agreement between the city and private entity and determines that the value of physical infrastructure to city park land or improvements to city park land provided by the private entity is at least 150% of the market value of the land granted by the city to the private entity."

Despite comments made by city council members during the August 13 meeting and to members of the public directly about having a "10,000 square foot limit" on the one-to-one property exchange, the actual ordinance voted on by the council on August 13 makes no mention of such a limit.

WEAN has concerns regarding the lawfulness of the Oak Harbor city council's actions on August 13 and throughout this process. WEAN is also concerned by the city's failure to provide all of the necessary facts to the public throughout this process and the council's overall lack of respect for public opinion. During a Parks and Rec Advisory Commission meeting on June 4, public officials called citizenry engaged in the public comment process "reactionary," "uninformed," "not trustworthy to vote intelligently," "out-of-towners," and "grandstanders".

As seen below, the public comments received by the city council since the first meeting on this topic on May 21 are thoughtful, respectful, articulate, passionate and well informed viewpoints formulated with the information provided by the city at the time. The overwhelming majority of comments are in favor of keeping the election provision in the city code as it was originally adopted in 1997, which would have kept the people's voting right intact.

The Oak Harbor city council voted against the will of the people, but that does not take away from the extraordinary outpouring from the community in support of the people's right to vote on the future of public parkland. It's clear that our community cares deeply about each other, our voting rights, and our parks.

The city council may not have heard you, but we have.

Stay loud.