ELGIN — Residents will have the opportunity to vote on charter amendments later this year.

Councilors were in favor of amending the model charter provided by the League of Oregon Cities and unanimously voted to refer the ballot measure to residents during the general election in November. City Administrator Alex McHaddad will work with the city attorney to draft the charter amendments and ballot measure.

“Elgin’s charter is antiquated and contains very few features of a modern city government,” McHaddad said.

This can create difficulties around recruitment and retention, as training for municipal employees typically does not account for the “quirks” of Elgin’s governing documents, according to McHaddad.

One of these quirks was an agenda item for council discussion during the meeting.

State law gives cities a three-month filing window for elections unless otherwise stated by the city charter.

McHaddad said that Elgin is one of the places where the charter says otherwise.

McHaddad explained that under the current charter Elgin residents have a window between Aug. 7 and Sept. 1.

However, under state law the deadline for the county clerks to receive election paperwork is Aug. 27.

“In order to give the Union County Clerk and prospective candidates the maximum time to verify and collect signatures, I would like to set a filing deadline of Aug. 20 for signature gathering, which provides a week both for the clerk to validate signatures and candidates to collect additional signatures,” McHaddad said.

The city administrator added that the elections division advised him that the Aug. 27 deadline is firm and recommended looking into charter reform to expand the filing window.

The council voted to approve engaging with the League of Oregon Cities legal service to see if there is any wiggle room around the candidate filing deadline for this year.

The LOC provides a model charter, which aims to serve as a guide for charter drafting and provides a foundation for meeting different needs or policy choices. McHaddad recommended adopting the model charter with amendments that would make the document a better fit for Elgin.

The recommended amendments include retaining the city administrator as an elected role, keeping the mayor’s position as a two-year term and providing the mayor with the power to make committee appointments.

McHaddad also recommends changing the charter so that Elgin can fill the pro tem city administrator position for the remainder of the term rather than in six-month increments. Under the current city charter, after McHaddad concludes his initial three-month probationary period, he must renegotiate his contract every six months.

Mayor S. James Johnson said he has been happy with McHaddad’s performance so far.

“He’s come in at a crazy time and is doing a great job,” he said.

The model charter also allows for the council to make changes to the election policy. So, if voters pass the ballot measure, councilors could adopt state election laws and provide residents with the three-month filling window.

Other ballot measures

The council also discussed referring an advisory ballot measure to voters asking residents to weigh in on whether to continue the law enforcement relationship with the Union County Sheriff’s Office.

This would be a nonbinding vote. A yes would indicate the resident wants to continue the relationship, whereas a no vote could indicate a number of opinions, including changes to the current contract, potentially reestablishing a local police department, contracting with a different law enforcement agency or not contracting with a law enforcement agency at all.

The council signed a six-year law enforcement contract with the Union County Sheriff’s Office in June 2022.

This came after councilors voted against signing the proposed contract the month prior with the intention of reestablishing Elgin’s police department. Ultimately the council signed a new contract, which went into effect July 1, 2022.

Union County Sheriff Cody Bowen said he was in favor of putting this ballot measure in front of Elgin residents. He said that during the conversation two years ago many people were upset about the lack of transparency.

“I think it’s good to get it out to the voters,” Bowen said.

This ballot measure did not get enough council votes to be referred to voters at this time. Councilors will continue this discussion at a later date before voting on the matter again.

Other agenda items

Councilors approved a $50 fee increase to the monthly rates at the Hu-Na-Ha RV Park.

The council also approved a monthly $2.50 increase in both water and sewer rates.

Water rates have not been raised since 2013, according to Elgin Public Works Director Tyler Crook. At that time the city council committed to not raising rates for 10 years. However, he said, not raising rates can lead to operational problems, especially considering inflation. Both the water and sewer funds started to experience shortages due to not increasing rates to match the rising costs, Crook said. He explained that each rate increase is 50 cents less than what residents would be paying if the city had increased its rates to match inflation.

Before voting on the water rate increase the council needed to amend the current resolution. McHaddad explained that there were conflicting prices for door knocker fees for late payments. The fee was changed to $17.50 in 2016, but a 2014 resolution that set the price at $32.50 was not properly amended. Elgin has been charging the lower price, but has technically had both on the books.

All three of these increases were included as part of the approved 2024-25 budget.