The Cave Junction City Council’s last meeting for the month took place Sept. 26 at City Hall and several important decisions were made within the 35-minute meeting.
Council members Ethan Lane, Tina Casey-Jones, and Jean Ann Miles were in attendance, with Miles leading the three-person quorum in the absence of Mayor Martell. Council member Jesse Dugas also had prior obligations to attend to that evening.
Public Works Director Alex Ponder updated the council on some of the progress his department has been making with the Watkins/199 project that has been in the works for quite a while, reiterating that things were going very smoothly. He also mentioned that six U.S. Cellular “mini cell towers” will soon be erected around the city in six different locations.
After this, the council unanimously authorized signing the contract for the library renovation project, though they were somewhat wary of the cost attached to the document and wondered if this was within the normal budgetary range for a project of this scale.
The next item on the agenda was Resolution 961, declaring the property located at 310 S. Kerby Avenue to be a nuisance. This declaration was due to a fence that had been erected on the property being in direct violation of the city code. Several meetings prior, the property owner had come before the council with an impassioned plea for them to allow the fence to stay, which was swiftly denied unless it was brought down in height and the property pins had been located. As the property owner had failed to do either of these things, the council passed Resolution 961 and the property owner is going to be fined $500 a day until the situation is resolved. The council made it clear that they didn’t want to do this, but felt that they had to in order to motivate the property owner to fix the problem.
Toward the end of the meeting, a final decision was reached regarding the RV Park that had been discussed at the three previous meetings. The site plan review for the project was passed 2-1, with Miles being the only member in opposition. She explained that while she wasn’t against the project itself, she didn’t agree with parts of the plan that had been presented to the council.