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August 23, 2026

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The

Ashland Free Press

Rockin’ the Siskiyous — Ever Since 2005

Online Edition
Collage on aged paper: torn copies of the same scribbled diagram-covered page arranged in a circle of crayon arrows around a crumpled original, above a council dais with a wooden gavel.Art by CONTRA
The Sunday Edition

The Trouble With Being Right About Sabrina Cotta

August 23, 2026 · by Nixie Worthington

George Kramer says the city manager has to go, and he has chased the case further than anyone else in town has been willing to. This paper spent two months with the full record — the hiring she stabilized, the wildfire work, the money, the process failures — and arrived where he did by a different road. The reasons matter more than the verdict, and the 180-day clause in her contract matters more than either.

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The Latest

Civic BeatCouncil Aug 18

Full Tilt Boogie

Aug 20 · Nixie Worthington

At 9:31 the council suspended its own end-time rule so two councilors could deliver a hand-drafted rewrite of the land use code — sixteen amendments, due at the state in a month, for a planning department with a quarter of a person to spare. Also: neighbor notice eliminated, the parks fee's third near-death experience, a $50,000 childcare sneak, and the city manager's empty chair.

Opinion

Five Dollars and Fifteen Cents

Aug 18 · Nixie Worthington

Ashland charges you a parks fee. Ashland does not have a parks fund. It has not had one since 2024, when the city's auditor told the finance department that a separate parks fund could no longer be maintained and the money was folded into the general fund like an egg into batter.

Civic BeatCouncil Aug 17

The Vibe Theory of Law Enforcement

Aug 18 · Nixie Worthington

Monday's Council study session: the police chief credits the vibe for falling crime, a former dispatcher out-prepares the department on its own data, the building division gets the dedicated fund the hospital money can't have, and $4 million sits in a drawer.

Civic Beat

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Planning Aug 11

Sixty Units An Acre

Aug 14 · Alan Decault

Ashland wrote single room occupancies into its code for the first time — six to a single-family lot, and triple density in multifamily zones. In the same ordinance, mailed notice shrinks to a hundred feet and the only person who may appeal a housing decision becomes the developer. Recommended 5-0.

Parks + Council Aug 12

With All Due Respect, That Was All Wrong

Aug 13 · Nixie Worthington

The joint Parks–Council session on the parks fee: the chair discovers what the money is for, a councilor's mental model is executed on live television, no decision is reached — and then everyone stays another ninety minutes for pickleball.

Parks Aug 5

A Mile of Trail, a Hundred-Year Plan

Aug 6 · Nixie Worthington

Ashland is deciding whether bicycles belong in Lithia Park: a mile of trail, $30,000, 390 comments, a master plan nobody on the commission can agree on, and the four real questions under the jazz hands. The long treatment arrives in our next Sunday Edition.

Opinion

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The Pickleball Wars Were Never About Pickleball

Aug 14 · Nixie Worthington

The room at the Parks Commission study session on April 1 was full in a way that parks meetings are not usually full. What they were fighting over was eight tennis courts at Hunter Park — and a shortage nobody has budgeted to fix.

Where Are The Commas

Aug 11 · Nixie Worthington

Six studies, eighteen years, 351 pages, a 159-person survey, and a civic campus the Council declined nearly unanimously — while the buildings Ashland is keeping still have no costed plan.

The Reason Keeps Changing

Aug 4 · Nixie Worthington

A $6,000 rafter, five explanations for one locked City Hall, a roofer with a live warranty who never got a call, a police car in a journalist's driveway, and thirty Helman heirs with four lawyers.