Yachats council authorizes up to $10,000 to support Newport litigation over Coast Guard base and proposed detention facility

The Yachats City Council on April 15 said it will contribute to legal costs for the City of Newport in litigation involving the removal of a Coast Guard rescue helicopter from Newport and a proposed immigrant detention facility.

"Our city council agreed with the Newport City Council that both issues affect all of the nearby communities and that a detention center in particular would make the Oregon Central Coast much less attractive to tourists," Barry Collins said. Collins said the council "authorized a contribution and delegated the mayor and the city manager to determine the amount not to exceed $10,000." The council did not state the final amount during the meeting footage.

Collins framed the contribution as protection for regional tourism and local employers who rely on visitor traffic. He said Newport requested that Yachats and other nearby cities enter an intergovernmental agreement to share the costs Newport has incurred in litigation with the Department of Homeland Security.

The meeting record does not show a vote tally or which officials will sign the intergovernmental agreement; Collins said the mayor and the city manager were delegated to determine the exact contribution, up to the $10,000 cap. No public comment or formal response from Newport or the Department of Homeland Security is included in the recorded summary.

Next steps: city staff were delegated authority to finalize the contribution amount under the $10,000 cap and to execute the intergovernmental agreement; the council did not set a public date for execution during the recorded remarks.