By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
YACHATS – Yachats council members said goodbye to two of their members Wednesday, praising appointee Anthony Muirhead for his character and Leslie Vaaler for her attention to detail and integrity.
Muirhead, the general manager of the Adobe resort who was appointed to fill Vaaler’s seat on the council in February 2021, came in third in a three-person race for two council seats in November. Vaaler, a councilor who was elected mayor in 2020, did not run for a second, two-year term.
It was the council’s last meeting of the year – and possibly its shortest at 65 minutes – and the usual time to say goodbye to those leaving. Its first meeting of the new year — Jan. 5 – will see Craig Berdie sworn in as mayor and Catherine Whitten-Carey as a new councilor, replacing Vaaler and Muirhead. Both winners campaigned on discontent in the community over council performance and the lack of progress on numerous projects.
Councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey praised Muirhead for balancing a heavy work schedule, an active family and still leaving time for city business – although he sometimes did it while manning the motel’s reception desk.
“We haven’t always agreed on everything, but I appreciate his perspective,” said city manager Heide Lambert.
Muirhead said he appreciated that councilors were always trying their best, without personal agendas.
“No one came in with any other intention other than to improve Yachats,” he said.
O’Shaughnessey led the tributes for Vaaler, gently teasing her for her well-known attention to detail, being a “master of proofreading” and that “… she was precise, which sometimes annoyed me.”
O’Shaughnessey said she polled city staff and some residents for their thoughts about Vaaler, and came up with words such as: gentle, humble, gracious, organized, smart and detail oriented. She credited Vaaler for remaining “unflappable” during two years of city manager and staff turmoil at city hall dring which the mayor and council came under heavy criticism.
“While accomplishments are important, character is more so,” O’Shaughnessey said.
Saving her thoughts for the last moments of the meeting, Vaaler said she and her husband, Jeff, moved to Yachats in 2016 with the idea of a quiet retirement. But she started attending city meetings and the result of that was spending two-thirds of her first six years in Yachats as a candidate, councilor or mayor.
While Vaaler said she was “proud of my service,” she wished the new council success in their new challenges, urging it to listen and put the city first.
“Please remember to protect everything that makes Yachats special,” she said.
In other business Wednesday, the council:
- Re-appointed Lance Bloch and Jacqueline Danos to the Planning Commission, Bob Bennett to the Public Works & Streets Commission, Adam Altson to the Parks & Commons Commission, and Marion Godfrey to the Library Commission. The Planning Commission will have one vacancy in January because Christine Orchard did not seek re-appointment; Ron Urban is leaving Public Works & Streets, and there will be four openings on Parks & Commons when Berdie and Whitten-Carey join the council.
- Heard a report from Yachats Chamber of Commerce director Bobbi Price on its new initiatives, including a “wine walk” involving local businesses in April, a new website, membership initiatives and efforts to get fireworks and the La De Da parade on the same day – July 4 – next year.
- Heard a request from Muirhead for the city to once again use lodging taxes to pay for July 4 fireworks, saying the boost to the economy and visibility of Yachats was too important for the city to not have them. The council stepped in to pay $25,000 for the fireworks this year, but on a 3-2 vote. Muirhead said the chamber is trying to work out contract details with the fireworks vendor, and that the price of an alternative show – lasers or drones – was prohibitive at $70,000 to $90,000.
