By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The Yachats City Council – despite opposition from the mayor – will spend $10,000 to get a better idea how or if the Little Log Church and Museum can be saved from falling apart.
Whether the city will spend possibly hundreds of thousands more to fix or replace it, is still another matter.
After two years of little discussion whether Yachats should repair, replace or ignore the city-owned facility, the church’s nonprofit support group has found a local engineer willing to use his expertise and contacts to examine the deteriorating structure.
“We have a plan of action to see what steps can be taken, to see what needs to be done, and then how to do it,” said James Kerti, a board member of the nonprofit Friends of the Little Log Church & Museum.
The museum and church at the corner of West Third and Pontiac streets is owned by the city but day-to-day operations and volunteers are managed by the Friends group. The museum portion of the building is in OK shape, but the church wing is deteriorating as siding and a wood foundation rots away.
Prior to this year, the city had allocated $150,000 in each of its last two budgets to replace the church with a replica – a decision that the Friends’ board agreed in March 2019 was the best route.
But initial estimates to do that were nearly $400,000 – so the previous city council and Parks & Commons Commission asked the Friends to raise $100,000 to help show there was community support for the project. Stymied by coronavirus pandemic restrictions and general fund-raising issues, the Friends group has been able to collect $31,000 so far.
During the council’s meeting last week, the Friends made a pitch to resume investigating what’s wrong with the church and what it might involve – and cost – to fix or replace it.
It is now working with Larry Thornton, a mechanical engineer who moved from Corvallis to Yachats last fall. Thornton said he had a commercial contractor from the Willamette Valley willing to help figure out issues with the structure and then propose possible solutions.
Once Thornton and the contractor size up the issues and prepare an estimate, then the city can determine the next course of action – including doing nothing.
“Instead of everybody tossing up their hands and saying ‘We don’t know enough, or have enough information, or enough money’ and waiting another year or two, we’re able to make some progress,” he said.
Thornton estimated their costs would be no more than $10,000 – and suggested he might donate part of his services to “get this project off dead center and moving forward.”
“I’m now a part of the community and willing to do this,” he told the council.
Three councilors enthusiastic
The city currently has $207,000 in its 2021-22 capital reserve budget set aside for the church project. But that and information from what former community services coordinator Heather Hoen, contractors and another local engineer found previously were not mentioned in the meeting or provided by city staff.
Still, the proposal last week was greeted with enthusiasm by Councilors Greg Scott, Ann Stott and Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey. They stressed it was important to find out long-running issues with the church and potential costs to fix them.
“This gives the council an estimate of what the project might cost,” Scott said. “… we need to understand what the problem is.”
“It gives us choices. It gives us a plan,” said O’Shaughnessey. “Spending $10,000 on that is worth it.”
Mayor Leslie Vaaler questioned Thornton on his proposed process and what repairs might cost.
“What kind of numbers are we talking about?” Vaaler asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Thornton replied.
“If we know we can’t afford it from the start … what’s the point?” Vaaler said.
“Well, the point is if the community loves this building you need to do something because the dry rot is not going to stop,” Thornton replied. “If the dry rot continues you won’t have the building.
“Nobody’s got an unlimited checkbook,” he said. “But this gives the city the best resources and the right people in the room to say ‘OK, what are all of our possibilities and how far down the road can we go?’”
Scott was visibly irritated with Vaaler’s line of questioning indicating the city didn’t have money for the project before it even knew what the problems are.
“I think we have the cart before the horse,” he said. “Larry is asking a good question – is this council committed to saving this historical building? If the answer is yes, we need some data. We need information because we don’t know what the problem is.”
With that Scott called for a vote, which was 4-1 to approve spending up to $10,000 to investigate the building’s issues.
In explaining her “no” vote, Vaaler said the council “needs more community input. I think our council has been resisting that. I think it’s important to know what our citizens value, and it may be precisely what Larry and his team can provide …”
Previous YachatsNews stories on this issue:
LLC&M board agrees to tear down church: Go here
2019-20 Yachats budget committee debates funding for church replacement: Go here
2020-21 Yachats budget committee also debates funding church repairs: Go here
There are more pressing issues than this that affect this whole city, such as the poor excuse for a cell tower we have here. Why don’t we look at getting that replaced with a better one that does not crash and burn for days at a time. I had to install a land line because my cell coverage was too unpredictable even with a 4G network extender. An unpredictable communication system that affects everyone is much more of a problem to fix than a funky church building.
$10,000 just to see how much more money to spend? Yachats sure wastes a lot of money and then complains about the people who bring money into Yachats.