On Wednesday, Aug. 21, the Board of Josephine County Commissioners convened at the Anne G. Basker Auditorium in Grants Pass. Four public hearings were held over the course of the meeting, each pertaining to a different ordinance from the Josephine County Code that county staff have determined are no longer relevant or enforceable.
The board has repealed over a dozen such ordinances in recent months, which were mostly enacted before the turn of the century. One of the ordinances the board has eyed to repeal breaks this trend, however, as it was approved by the county in 2018.
Ordinance 2018-006 was passed by commissioners Dan DeYoung, Lily Morgan and Darin Fowler in 2018 in response to Pacific Power’s announcement that any power customers who did not consent to the replacement of their analog meters with new smart meters would be charged an additional $36 on their electric bill. At the time, some JoCo residents refused to have smart meters installed on their properties, citing health, safety and privacy concerns, many of which were debunked as conspiracy theories.
Assistant county legal counsel Leah Harper explained the rationale behind the county’s intention to repeal 2018-006, saying, “We enacted this ordinance, which did not allow the extra charges (for retaining analog meters), and then the county was sued by the state and the Oregon Public Utility Commission. We settled the case so that people only paid $9 instead of $36 if they wanted to keep their (old) meter. And also the settlement required that the county not enforce the ordinance in the future, which was not a problem because the smart meter installation came and went.”
Also on the county code chopping block was Chapter 3.20: Payment of Attorney Fees. Per Harper, the 1985 legislation “allowed the county to pay the attorney fees for witnesses who testified for the district attorney and then were later sued by the defendant. We don’t know if this ordinance was ever actually used.” The county concluded this chapter was unnecessary and should be removed from the county code.
The last two public hearings both pertained to landfills and were found to be redundant because the county no longer owns any landfills.
Chapter 8.05 compiled “user fees and conditions and county-owned and operated sanitary landfill sites.” Harper said the legislation dates back to 1992, when the county owned the Marlson Landfill.
Any even older ordinance from 1962 found in Chapter 8.06 designated county property as the Marlson Landfill. Naturally, with the landfill defunct this chapter is no longer needed.
The first readings of all four ordinances to repeal antiquated county code sections were met with no objections from the commissioners nor input from citizens, similar to all the other recent repeals. Second readings will take place Sept. 4, where approval is all but assured.