The Reason Keeps Changing

The Ashland Community Center was closed for seven years. It closed in 2019. Outlier Construction was paid more than $2.2 million for the Community Center and Pioneer Hall together, and through all seven of those years there were no weddings in it, no memorials, no celebrations, no ceremonies, no rentals, no public anything.

It reopened in February 2026. The first people through the door were thirteen city employees, including City Manager Sabrina Cotta, who took an office.

There was no ribbon cutting. No grand opening. No tour. The ribbon cutting was eventually scheduled for July 22 — five months after the government moved in, and the sequence is the whole argument. The building was not opened to the public and then borrowed by staff in an emergency. It was occupied by staff, and the public was invited to its own building afterward.

Councilor Gina DuQuenne said it plainly: "After seven years, no community events had been there, no ceremonies, no memorials, no celebrations. The first thing that happened was for the city to move into the community center without a grand opening, a ribbon cutting, a tour or anything. To me, that was not acceptable."

The Inspection That Was Not Looking For This

Start with why City Hall closed, because the origin of the inspection is the part nobody mentions.

On January 16, 2026, a building inspector from Oregon Commercial Property Inspections went through City Hall. The city had commissioned that report — and here is the detail — as part of its legal proceedings to obtain clear title to the building. Communications Director Dorinda Cottle confirmed as much to Ashland.news. The city went looking for ammunition in a lawsuit and came back with a condemnation notice.

Fire Marshal Mark Shay's own report, filed February 17 at three in the afternoon, records how it reached him: "As the fire code official, I was provided a copy of the report by City Manager Cotta."

Shay found two deficiencies. First, "a split rafter in the upstairs attic," described in the inspection as "an approximate 2x6 structural member that is split into two pieces." Second, multiple concerns with the roof, which he quotes directly: "extreme granule lost with several past patch work," "areas of buckling," "decay and in disrepair," "staining and holes in roof with damaged plywood / beams / timber," and "subfloor with holes caused by moisture via roof."

He called the city manager. "Upon review of the report I contacted City Manager Cotta and expressed my concern regarding structural stability of the roof. With the combination of the split rafter and multiple identified areas of concern to the roofing system, it is unknown the full extent of damage."

Then the sentence that has been almost entirely absent from the public conversation ever since:

"A report by a qualified engineer assessing the safety of the roof system should be forwarded to Fire Marshal Shay prior to resuming normal occupancy."

Not replace the roof. Not spend $260,000. An engineer's report on the roof system. That was the stated condition of reopening, set by the official with the statutory power to set it, in writing, on February 17.

Shay's report also does something the city's messaging has never acknowledged. It lays out how staff may keep using the building in the meantime: no entry with snow or ice on the roof; when clear, anyone entering is tracked by a responsible party who stays outside; the log records "name, time in, time out and purpose"; limit the number of occupants at one time; keep visits to a few minutes.

That is not a man condemning a structure. That is a fire marshal managing a risk while an engineer takes a look.

Councilor Dylan Bloom — the only elected official who answered The Chronicle's questions in February, which is its own small indictment of the other six — made the fair defense: the fire marshal has independent statutory authority in Oregon, the decision "is not discretionary for Council or the City Manager," and a municipal building is not a house where you call a guy.

He is right. The closure was not Cotta's call. Everything after it was.

Six Thousand Dollars, And Then Everything Else

The split rafter was repaired. The city's own repair table, dated March 25, 2026 and attached to the May 4 council packet, carries it as a line item:

Rafter Repair (Safety) — $6,000. Staff estimate. The Chronicle reported the actual cost at $5,700.

A roofing expert consulted by The Chronicle described the fix as straightforward: supports on both sides of the split, or a steel brace if needed. A consulting firm advised that reopening was possible once it was done.

City Hall did not reopen. Cotta announced instead: "Staff will not be returning until we get the roof fixed."

The same table prices the roof. Under Immediate Concerns, "Roofing (Life Cycle)" comes to $260,000. Add electrical, HVAC, water heater and pest control and the immediate total is $516,613. Keep going — seismic structural updates at $2,472,355, sprinklers, exit signage, masonry, windows, generator, doors, drainage, interior finishes — and the full City Hall list totals $3,412,037, before ADA accommodation or asbestos planning, which the table says it excludes.

Also in that packet: a proposal from Hoag Roofing dated April 24, 2026, to let the roof dry for 48 hours and apply a silicone coating over the existing PVC membrane. Material and labor complete, the sum of $23,778.18, with a five-year manufacturer's material warranty.

So the menu of responses to a leaking roof over two offices ran from about twenty-four thousand dollars to three and a half million. The city chose none of them, and the building sat empty.

I am not against fixing the roof properly. The 2024 McKinstry report said it had exceeded its useful life, and Bloom is right that piecemeal spending on a building with no long-term plan is how cities waste money.

It is simply not the argument anyone was making in February. In February this was a $6,000 rafter and a request for an engineer's report.

The Phone Call Nobody Made

The roof on Ashland City Hall carries a warranty, and the warranty has years left to run.

Blesser Built Roofing of Medford did the work. The Chronicle reports the current roof went on in 2013 under a twenty-year manufacturer's materials guarantee. At the May 4 study session a councilor, reading from paperwork in open session, described it slightly differently — partial roof work in 2014, for $8,000, under a twenty-year warranty with twelve years still to run. The date and the scope are not settled and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

What is not in dispute is the part that matters. There is a warranty, it is live, and the councilor reading those documents noted something else: Blesser was not among the firms asked to quote on the repairs.

On April 7, the City Council directed staff to obtain bids or quotes for repairing or replacing the roof and for the HVAC.

In late June — nearly three months later — The Chronicle asked Ryan Blesser whether the city had contacted him about the leaks keeping City Hall closed.

His entire answer was one word. "No."

He added that the roof he put on that historic building is under a guarantee he stands by.

Three months. A live warranty, a company twelve miles up the interstate, a council directive, a councilor who found the paperwork by looking — and the easiest telephone call in municipal government was not made. Meanwhile the rain came in April and May, into a building nobody was allowed to enter, and how much further damage that did is unknown, because nobody was in there.

Asked in late June what had been done to carry out the April 7 direction, Cottle referred the question to Public Works Director Scott Fleury, who was on vacation.

What The Leaks Are Doing, According To The City

Cotta declared City Hall would not reopen on account of leaks in the roof — over two offices. Her own, and that of Human Resources Director Molly Taylor.

Here is Fleury, on the record in late June, on those leaks: there has been no significant water damage to the offices since Cotta and Taylor decamped to the Community Center.

And here is Cottle, in the same reporting, offering a third rationale: the repairs are unbudgeted and need council approval, and "if City Council approves those projects, it'll be easiest for the contractors to perform the work — and for staff to avoid disruption — with staff not in the building." Plus a fourth: "There is also the pending litigation over City Hall's encumbered title, which can also influence how and what the City does with the building."

Line them up, in order of appearance.

February: a split rafter and a fire marshal asking for an engineer's report. Repaired, $6,000. March onward: roof leaks over the city manager's office. Late June: no significant water damage from those leaks, per public works. Also late June: it is really about unbudgeted roof and HVAC work, which council must approve — the same council that asked for the numbers on April 7 and received nothing. Also late June: it is really about the lawsuit.

Five explanations. One closed building. Any one of them might be true. They cannot all be the reason, and the residents of this town are entitled to know which one it is, from the person who made the call.

A Friday At Two O'Clock

Meanwhile, thirteen people were sitting in the Community Center.

Councilor Bloom, with Councilor DuQuenne, called a special council meeting for two o'clock on Friday, March 27, and opened by naming the point at the center of this entire mess.

"It is understood, I think, that we all on council understand that operational decisions are made by the city manager, but it is this council's responsibility to make policy decisions. And my understanding is that we have been making policy decisions about the community center."

Where to park displaced staff for a fortnight is operations. Converting a $2 million public building the council spent seven years reopening into administrative offices is policy. One requires a phone call. The other requires a vote.

There was no vote. Councilors got an emergency alert on February 16 about a cracked rafter and an email on the 17th or 18th telling them all staff had been moved into the Community Center. The council business meeting that would have been the obvious place to discuss it had been cancelled for snow.

Councilor Eric Hansen framed it in a sentence — "We're taking something away from the community by occupying it with staff" — and started listing alternatives aloud: other city buildings, rented space, and, drily, the fact that the Black Sheep is open. Deputy City Manager Jordan Rooklyn answered capably, noting 2200 Ashland Street was the only city-owned building with that much empty office space, and then said the thing that defined the afternoon: "with the city manager out of town, I would definitely want her input."

The city manager was out of town. She was not available for the special meeting called about her own decision.

Former Mayor Julie Akins told the council they were elected to represent "the people of flesh and bone to whom you swore an oath," and that their job was to "open public buildings to the public, inform the staff that they serve you and serve the people."

The council voted 5-1 to ban the use of the Community Center as office space.

By May, Cotta was back before the council asking to stay, and the council walked back the immediate ending, allowing staff to occupy the "historic office areas" so long as they did not displace public rentals or programming. At the end of June, staff were still there. The rental calendar had no opening date, because the city was waiting on new door locks — for the offices that were staying.

The public could not book the Community Center because the locks had not arrived for the government offices inside it.

The Doors Were Open. A Citizen Closed Them.

On a Sunday evening in late May, around 6:30, the doors of the Ashland Community Center were standing wide open.

Jim Falkenstein found them. Falkenstein posts a report on social media about every single City Council meeting, which makes him, in every sense that matters, a member of the press in this town. He was with Marcus Scott, manager of the Lithia Artisans Market. They went in, spent about two minutes, filmed what they saw, came out, and locked the building.

That is the whole offense.

On Wednesday, Beth Falkenstein came home from the grocery store to find an Ashland police car in her driveway. Officer Fisher was there for her husband. Jim was out, so she called him and held the phone out so the officer could speak to him.

It was not a thank-you. It was a warning about trespassing on city property. No charges were filed.

Beth Falkenstein was upset, reasonably, about a police car parked in front of her house where the neighbors could see it.

Nobody will say who sent it. Police Chief Tighe O'Meara told The Chronicle it wasn't him and that it didn't come from the Police Department. Cotta told Ashland.news it wasn't her. Mayor Tonya Graham did not respond. Council President Jeff Dahle said he didn't know, called it "a very high priority to clearly understand exactly what occurred and who was involved in the decision-making process," and promised to be transparent once he had verified the facts, which is the most anyone in city government has offered.

An officer of the Ashland Police Department drove to a private residence to warn a journalist, and the mayor, the police chief and the city manager have all indicated it was not them. Someone ordered it. That person still has not been named.

To their credit — and I mean this — Graham and Dahle put out a statement taking the underlying blame: "Last weekend, a door at the Community Center was found unlocked and wide open. This should not have happened, and the responsibility rests squarely with the City. It is our job to ensure our facilities are secure, and we fell short of that. No excuses." They thanked the community members who secured the door.

That was the right statement. It lasted about a week.

"I Would Feel Violated"

On June 1, Mayor Graham escalated.

In a statement posted online, she wrote that by filming the offices and posting his report, Falkenstein had violated the privacy of Cotta and Taylor.

"It has struck me as I've thought about this situation that city staff who had their offices filmed and broadcast across social media likely feel violated in much the same way as someone whose home privacy has been violated. I keep personal photos and other things that have meaning for me at my desk, and I know how I would feel if someone entered my office, filmed it, and posted it to social media without my knowledge. I would feel violated."

She then asked the community to move on.

Falkenstein said he opened no drawers and no file cabinets in his two minutes inside. "I didn't look at anything, not even a piece of paper." The camera panned the offices and did not linger on anything personal.

I want to take the mayor's point seriously, because it contains a real human truth: people keep their lives on their desks, and being filmed without warning is unpleasant.

And then I want to say the obvious thing, flatly.

Those are not homes. That is the Ashland Community Center, a public building, paid for by the public, closed to the public for seven years, renovated with better than $2 million of public money, occupied by the city administration without a public vote, over the objection of a 5-1 council, while the residents who own it could not book it for a wedding.

The city left it standing open on a Sunday night. A citizen closed it. The city sent a police officer to his house. The mayor then explained that the citizen had violated the privacy of the officials who should not have been in the building in the first place, and asked everyone to move on.

The word "violated" is doing an enormous amount of work in that statement, and it is pointed in exactly the wrong direction.

The Ghost Of Abel Helman

One more thing, because it is the most Ashland item in this entire account, and because it may end up mattering more than the roof.

In November 2025 the city filed suit in Jackson County Circuit Court seeking a declaratory judgment to quiet the title to City Hall and a large portion of the Plaza — including the lithia fountain. City Attorney Johan Pietila signed it. His argument is that Ashland cannot move forward with selling or repairing City Hall until ownership of the land is settled, which is a reasonable thing for a city attorney to want.

The encumbrance is 142 years old. In 1884 John R. and Mary Helman deeded the land to the town of Ashland for use as a "public Square or Plaza and also for the erection of a Town Hall and Jail therein." If those uses stop, the property reverts to the Helmans. The jail — small, out of compliance with state law — has not held anyone since the 1970s and is now a storage room.

The city's position is that the reversionary clause is dead. It cites ORS 105.620, effective January 1, 1990, which offers a path to full title after ten years of possession. Pietila has asked the court to declare that Ashland may use the property "for any lawful purpose it chooses, including sale of the Property to a third party."

Then the heirs showed up.

Nearly thirty descendants of John R. and Mary Helman have come forward and hired four lawyers. Twenty-three were named in filings, with more to be added. Medford attorney Deborah Vincent represents Robert Dayle Cox of Lynchburg, Virginia, among others. On the same Friday the council voted 5-1 to get the government out of the Community Center, six descendants filed a counterclaim.

Their argument is narrower and sharper than the city seems to have expected. The deed, they write, "does not require continuous incarceration use of the jail facilities, nor does it prohibit the City from utilizing alternative correctional facilities." Ashland did not stop having a jail; it started using somebody else's. And then the sting: the building's closure may itself violate the deed, which could require the city to return the property or compensate the family. One of their attorneys has said the heirs are entitled to just compensation for the value of the reversionary interest.

Follow the sequence, because it is nearly perfect. The city commissioned a building inspection to strengthen its title lawsuit. The inspection closed the building. The closure may have handed the heirs their best argument.

There is one more number, and it belongs here rather than in the repair column. In February the city had City Hall appraised. Colette Meyer, MAI, valued it as of February 3 at $280,000 — a figure built not from the building but from 4,771 square feet of land at $58 a foot, precisely because, as the appraisal states, "due to the deed restriction which runs with the land, legally permissible uses are municipal only for public square of the plaza, town hall or jail." The building itself, 7,745 square feet raised in 1891 and extended in 1913 and 1995, is "in poor condition" and, "without renovation," at "the end of its economic life."

Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The rafter and the roof alone come to $266,000. The full repair list is more than twelve times the appraised value. Estimated marketing period, should the city ever be free to sell: twelve to twenty-four months.

Vincent has also asked the question that ought to be keeping the finance department awake: "Why would anyone buy bonds if a reversionary clause is on the property?" She adds that she agrees Ashland needs a new City Hall — just not on the Plaza, which has limited parking and limited room for staff. Which is to say that opposing counsel and the city's own facilities consultants have reached roughly the same conclusion from opposite directions.

The case may be decided on the record by Judge Benjamin Bloom, or settled, and settlement talks have reportedly run aground on the same rock as everything else here: nobody can agree what the building is for.

Vincent, asked what her clients want, gave the most human answer anyone has offered in this affair. "I think they are considering what their great-great-grandfather did and what his goals were."

Two councilors, Dylan Bloom and Jeff Dahle, have said publicly they do not want the building sold. "I get the sense that nobody wants to tear it down and build something new," Bloom said. Dahle: "There are people who don't want to see the building sold off, and I'm one of them."

So the city is in court arguing for the right to sell a building that at least two of its councilors will not vote to sell, against thirty relatives who want it kept as a town hall, in order to be free to repair it — while it sits closed over a roof nobody has called the roofer about.

And The Windows

Former City Councilor Eric Navickas appears to be the only person in Ashland who reads the whole code. He located a provision holding that street-facing windows "shall not be tinted so as to prevent views from outside of the building into the interior of the building."

Tinting had been applied to City Hall offices twenty years ago, and recently to the Community Center offices of the city manager and two other officials — to control temperature swings, Cotta reported to council. It will be removed.

It is window film. It is not a scandal and I decline to call it one. It is simply the miniature: the administration moved into a public building without asking, made the windows harder to see through, and had to be told by a former councilor with a copy of the code that this town has a rule against precisely that.

Nobody outside could see in. That was not the intent. It was the effect, and it took a citizen to notice — which by now is the pattern rather than the exception.

The Verdict

Sabrina Cotta did not crack the rafter. She did not write the 1884 deed, she did not lose the 2020 bond, and she did not close City Hall — Fire Marshal Shay did, under independent statutory authority, and Councilor Bloom is right that this was not discretionary.

Everything after February 17 is hers.

A $6,000 rafter repaired and the goalposts moved to a $260,000 roof. A $23,778 patch quote sitting in the packet, unremarked. A fire marshal who asked for an engineer's report on the roof system and got a nine-month closure instead. A live warranty from a Medford company that had not received a phone call three months after the council directed action. The April 7 direction that produced nothing by the end of June. Leaks that keep a building closed and that public works says have done no significant damage. Five different explanations for one locked door. A $2 million public building occupied ahead of the public it was renovated for, with the policy question never brought to the body that makes policy, and the city manager out of town for the meeting called to discuss it. Locks that the public's calendar waited on so the government's offices could keep theirs.

And a police officer in Jim Falkenstein's driveway, ordered by a person the mayor, the chief and the city manager have each said was not them.

The people who lost here are easy to name. They are the couple who wanted a wedding reception in the Community Center and could not, for seven years, and then could not because the government was in it, and then could not because the locks for the government's offices had not arrived. They are the family who wanted a memorial in the hall their taxes rebuilt. They are Beth Falkenstein, who came home from the grocery store to a police car in her driveway because her husband locked a door the city left open.

Get the engineer's report the fire marshal asked for in February. Call the roofer. Bring the April 7 bids to council. Give the building back. And name the person who sent that officer, because a city that will not say who pointed a police car at a journalist has a problem considerably larger than a rafter.

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Sources: Fire Marshal Mark Shay, General Fire Inspection Report, City Hall, 20 E. Main St., Feb. 17, 2026 (City of Ashland Document Center). City Hall Repair Recommendations and Costing Estimates, as of March 25, 2026, and the Hoag Roofing proposal of April 24, 2026, both attached to the May 4, 2026 City Council study session packet (pp. 450-527 of 532). Appraisal of Ashland City Hall by Colette Meyer, MAI, date of value Feb. 3, 2026, same packet. Ashland City Council special meeting of March 27, 2026, and regular meetings of April 7 and May 5, 2026, as transcribed from the meeting record. Reporting: Ashland.news, "Ashland City Hall shuttered over structural concerns after inspection," Feb. 19, 2026, and "Judge to decide fate of Ashland City Hall deed as repair costs loom"; OPB / Jefferson Public Radio, "Ashland council votes to remove city offices from community center," March 31, 2026; The Ashland Chronicle (David Runkel), "City Hall Tidbits" of Feb. 23, June 1, June 29 and Aug. 3, 2026, "Ashland Officials Have No Explanation For Community Center Doors Being Wide Open," May 27, 2026, "Ashland Mayor Escalates City's Complaint Against Falkenstein," June 3, 2026, and "Ashland City Hall Is Closed Indefinitely," June 30, 2026. Quotations from meetings are as transcribed; quotations from documents are as written.