By GARRET JAROS/Lincoln Chronicle
WALDPORT – The Waldport city council voted unanimously Tuesday to return mayor Heide Lambert to office and dismiss charges that she violated the city charter in March.
The decision is a reversal of the council’s 6-0 vote April 3 to remove Lambert for violating the city’s charter by trying March 25 to direct city staff in their duties and follows a May 8 court order to reinstate her pending a legal review. The order by Lincoln County presiding judge Sheryl Bachart came one day after Lambert’s attorney asked the court to review the council’s vote to remove her — a move he called a “product of a slapdash local proceeding” that was “both substantively and procedurally improper.”
Lambert was also arrested for disorderly conduct April 10 after delaying the start of a council meeting to make a statement protesting her removal. But Lincoln County district attorney Jenna Wallace declined to prosecute for what she said was insufficient evidence.
The council’s resolution Tuesday followed a short executive (closed) session after which the six councilors left and Lambert remained to answer questions from reporters.
“They dismissed all of the charges against me,” she said. “So I am no longer being expelled. I no longer have to fight in litigation for my seat that I was duly elected for. It was a great day for democracy today. I’m very excited for the people who voted me in and even the people who didn’t because I’ll be able to serve them both.”
Lambert said her plan is to get back to business.
“We just lost two months of city business to stuff that wasn’t necessary,” she said. “So now I’m very excited to be able to serve as the mayor and get working on our park and look at our contracts and see what is to be paid.”
Lambert also said she hopes there will be no more death threats to her or controversy in the community.
“It was really unbelievable,” she said of the recent threat. “Somebody put on Facebook (Friday) that I represented a gutter rat and should be exterminated. And because I’m a mayor that’s a political threat and so it’s a crime and so the sheriff will be investigating that and we’ll see what happens with that.”
The post has since been removed.
Lambert returned to her mayoral duties for a special council meeting last week after the regularly scheduled May 8 meeting was canceled because of concerns about clashes between opposing groups.
On Tuesday, city manager Dann Cutter praised Lambert’s handling of that meeting after the council passed the resolution to vacate its decision to expel Lambert.
“I think the mayor did a fantastic job in what was probably a very stressful meeting for her and all of us,” Cutter said.
The meeting was held “very quietly” and “calmly,” he said, which is something the council has not experienced in the past six months.
Cutter has also received threats over the past several months.
“I’m hoping that we can kind of return to kind of a boring business as normal council meetings,” Cutter said. “I do appreciate the public’s comments and their concerns and I do take them to heart but at the end of the day our goal here is just to serve the community and public as best we can.”
Tuesday’s decision to reinstate Lambert and drop charges, however, was based primarily on the cost of fighting the issue in court.
“It became very clear that we were going to spend upwards of $200,000 defending a decision that many people had expressed unhappiness that it had been taken from the citizens’ hands,” Cutter said. “So, we’ll put it back in the citizens’ hands. And they can choose to do whatever they want to do.”
Cutter added there may be some “public consternation in both directions” that will need to work itself out but the plan is to move forward and get back to “boring business as normal council meetings.”
The city will still have to respond to the writ of review filed by Lambert’s attorney by filing a motion to dismiss, which he hopes Lambert will do as well.
“We will move for dismissal but it is entirely up to Mayor Lambert’s team to also concur with dismissal,” Cutter said. “Again, our decision was solely based on cost, that we really don’t want to burden the taxpayer.”
- Garret Jaros covers the communities of Yachats, Waldport, south Lincoln County and natural resources issues for the Lincoln Chronicle, formerly YachatsNews, and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
Lambert said that the city lost two months of business, that’s not true. City business carried on without her. That is the job of city manager, not the mayor. The city council makes all the decisions. Ms. Lambert, I guess feels she runs the city which got her in trouble in the first place.
The decision to remove her was illegal. The explanation that the reversal of removal was financial ignores the illegal action. Without admitting the action taken was illegal, I wonder if this matter will really be resolved.