Threading the Needle of Reasonability

Tuesday was election night, and Chair Jeff Dale — presiding in Mayor Graham's absence — opened by predicting exactly how he'd know the results had posted: "I will know that the results have come out when I look out here and everybody is looking down at their phone." The lights in the chamber were kept low by request. It was, in every sense, a meeting conducted in the dark, and this paper means that with affection and also precision, because general hospital services in this town closed the following morning and the dais did not speak of it once.

The Fifty-Minute Fee Fight

The main event was Resolution 2026-07, the annual miscellaneous fee book — every city charge from pool admission to annexation review, indexed to inflation at 3.1 percent. "No new fees," said finance, accurately. Councilor DuQuenne noted the accurate thing beside it: the parks fee ticked from $5.00 to $5.15. Not new. Merely more.

Councilor Bloom arrived with comparative ammunition: Ashland's annexation fee runs "over 1000% higher than Talent," its sign permit "over 400% higher." Chair Dale arrived with his OpenGov homework: the airport fund's internal administrative charge went from $32,686 to $114,579 in a year — three and a half times — while hangar rents rise 3.1 percent. "I don't know what I'm voting for here," he said, which from the man chairing the meeting is a sentence worth framing. Finance's candor, under questioning, was total and appreciated: the $35 returned-check fee "was what the bank charged us"; the $120 business license fee "is just a revenue generator." The city manager supplied the evening's title while defending a $5 skate rental: "This is threading the needle of reasonability."

Bloom moved to table the whole book until staff produced the cost-allocation methodology behind it. The motion failed 3-4 — Bloom, Dale, and DuQuenne for; and yes, the chair voted to table the item he was presiding over. Councilor Hansen then moved adoption; Councilor Kaplan amended to pull the building and planning fees for their scheduled August examination, unanimously; and the main motion passed 4-3, with Mayor Graham — attending remotely, from a family event — casting the deciding vote. A fee schedule for twenty-one thousand people, settled by a mayor on a video call while the town counted ballots.

The dissents deserve their space. Bloom: "I was elected by the people of Ashland to do the job... We have a responsibility and we get paid $900 a month... it's disappointing that we're going to pass up that opportunity to do the good hard work." DuQuenne: "All of this hits the people who live in Ashland that are going to the food bank." Dale: "go slow to go fast." Everybody on both sides invoked fiduciary duty, which is how you know the word has stopped meaning anything.

One Year to the Day

Public forum brought Paul Mina, marking an anniversary: "it was one year ago on May 19th, 2025 that... you all amended the 2025-2027 biannual budget at your study session" — without, he alleges, motion or vote, and he says the Oregon Department of Revenue agreed the amendment should not have preceded the public hearing. "Budget law does not permit you to ignore your own charter." And: "You want me to go away? I'm not going away." The Council's response, in its entirety, was to thank the next speaker. This paper takes no position on Mr. Mina's legal theory. It observes only that a council that spent fifty minutes that same night demanding methodological rigor from its own fee book could spare one sentence, some night, for a resident alleging its budget was amended unlawfully. Silence is also an answer; it is simply not a good one.

The hospital coalition came too. Suzanne Haman: "One out of 10 would say that's a done deal. No." Dr. John Mauer — "50 years surgeon and physician here in Ashland" — proposed a second Oregon medical school on the hill at SOU and announced, of the coming fight: "Get ready. It's gonna be a wild ride." Lori Hoagland, nurse practitioner, delivered the fact of the week without decoration: "General Hospital services are closing tomorrow in Ashland." Birthing services had already closed — on Mother's Day. "I think the idea that they chose that date says everything we need to know about their focus."

Housekeeping, Some of It Load-Bearing

Five ordinances got first readings: sidewalk responsibility, water and sewer connection authority delegated to the public works director — Councilor DuQuenne announced she couldn't support the delegation, then voted for it minutes later, unexplained — a grease ordinance for "bad actor restaurants," demolition review moved to staff (passed 4-2, Bloom dissenting on principle: "I just fundamentally don't think that it should be our jobs... to tell somebody that they can't demolish a house"), and the 2025 fire code. The chair billed them as seven ordinances. There were five. The count was never reconciled, and honestly, in the dark, who could say.

Travel Ashland reported $91.7 million in visitor spending and a 22 percent year-over-year spending jump; Bloom asked how much was inflation, and the honest answer was five to seven points. The wayfinding kiosks will be built in custom Corten steel, and the mountain-shaped sign toppers may be fabricated cheap by the Ashland High metal shop, which is the best procurement idea this city has had in a decade.

And in the city manager's report, delivered at the bottom of the ninth: fuel costs have "essentially doubled from what we have budgeted." The general fund is "our most vulnerable fund." Analysis coming June 3. It got ninety seconds. The skate rentals got fifty minutes. The hospital got zero. Elections were certified shortly thereafter.

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Sourced from machine-generated closed captions of the May 19, 2026 Ashland City Council business meeting. Quotations appear as transcribed; the caption software recycles speaker labels, so names are attached only where the chair's own words or self-identification confirm the speaker. Allegations made in public testimony are reported as testimony. Figures are as stated in open session.