Speedway opponents accuse council members of bias.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

COTTAGE GROVE - A City Council hearing on a controversial proposal to dramatically expand the racing season and increase attendance at Cottage Grove Speedway got off to a rocky start even before the first testimony Monday night.

Several opponents challenged the impartiality of some council members and demanded the hearing be postponed, pending an investigation into their "bias, prejudgment and a possible conflict of interest."

As the council prepared to adjourn to a closed session to seek legal advice on that request, another city resident complained that the City Hall Council Chamber was too small a venue for the high-interest hearing, saying the proceedings were inaudible to more than two dozen residents who could not fit into the jammed room.

But the hearing went forward as planned, with no councilors recusing themselves from participation.

Testimony was still under way late into the evening, and the council was not expected to begin its own deliberations on the zone change and master plan request until at least Dec. 19.

The planning commission in September approved the speedway requests 4-3, subject to 44 conditions recommended earlier by the city's planning staff and two conditions of the commission's: an earlier closing time on weekend nights and a maximum noise level that falls below state standards.

An attorney for longtime race track critics Larry and Kris Okray raised the bias charge against Councilors Lindsey Haskell and John "Pat" Patterson and possibly others. His allegations were echoed in a letter to the council from Martin Kilmer, another vocal opponent of the speedway.

In his request to table the hearing, Eugene attorney Douglas DuPriest cited Patterson's request to insert into the speedway hearing record more than 10 years worth of Cottage Grove police logs with noise and other complaints filed by the Okrays and Kilmer. DuPriest charged that the logs were compiled on a Saturday by police Chief Mike Grover at the request of Haskell.

"The receipt of that material is distressing to us," he said. "It is hard to see how it is relevant. It is easy to see that it was put into the record only to put my clients and Mr. Kilmer in a bad light."

In his letter, Kilmer charged that the council and "certain city staff have actively pursued activities for political reasons on a matter on which the City Council is supposed to act as a neutral decision-maker."

He said Grover told him such department files are not normally released to the public. Kilmer also questioned whether Mayor Gary Williams was involved in the matter. And he asked the city to delegate its decision-making power in the matter to "an impartial hearings officer."

The police log items - which included more than 200 different contacts - included mostly noise complaints but also included calls to police about at-large dogs, illegal fireworks and altercations at a city park near their homes.

The report was removed from the public record before the Monday hearing, after City Attorney Gary Ackley agreed with some city staff and council members that it was not relevant to the proceedings.

Patterson emerged from the closed session to state that he could make an impartial decision in the case based solely on what was in the official record.

Williams said he had seen logs of police complaints by the speedway opponents several years ago, when the speedway was still in Lane County jurisdiction.

"Have I seen it lately? I simply don't recall," he said, noting the 6-inch stack of materials in the hearing case. But he insisted he could make an impartial judgment.

Haskell said he has long used police log information, published weekly by The Cottage Grove Sentinel, as "a statistical tool."

He said there was no "meeting where we all got together and requested" the logs on the Okrays and Kilmer.

He added that he didn't intend to recuse himself from deliberating the matter.

"I've been a hot-rodder and a racer my whole life," he said. "I drive a great big truck with a great big motor. If that makes me biased so I can't represent the voters, so be it."

No councilors voted to request that the three withdraw from hearing the case.

If the council approves the speedway requests, DuPriest said, speedway expansion opponents will "definitely" appeal the decision, based on efforts to introduce the police logs, to the state Land Use Board of Appeals.