Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Parks Lease topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
West Linn staff outline lease terms, risks and grant opportunities for Mary S. Young Park
Summary
City staff recommended moving forward with a negotiated 25-year lease with Oregon State Parks that clarifies responsibilities, preserves options for cost-sharing and grant eligibility, and flags large potential costs such as bridge replacement and invasive-tree remediation.
City staff presented a draft 25-year lease with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department for Mary S. Young Park and outlined the tradeoffs the city will face if it continues as the park’s steward.
Parks Director Megan Bigjohn said the park is a substantial asset: "It is a 133 acres and that's about 20% of our parkland," and that staff tracked about "55,000 visitors" to the site in 2024 with an average stay of roughly 35 minutes. She said the city collects about $60,000 a year in fees but that operating and capital costs exceed that amount; for example, staff cited roughly $22,000 a year to maintain athletic fields and discussed footbridge replacement estimates.
City Attorney Kaylee Klein summarized negotiated contract changes that city staff said reduce the city's exposure. Klein said staff had limited language that previously could have been read to require the city to cover replacement costs and described new provisions giving the city "more authority to subcontract out work" and carving out a process to handle disease- or insect-related remediation costs. On the council-rules issue discussed earlier, Klein described a parallel procedural change: rather than requiring an executive session within 30 days of a statutory notice, staff would "give you notice within 7 days of receiving any of those tort claims," and the council could request an executive session if desired.
Councilors pressed staff about options to recover costs. Several councilors floated parking or event fees and digital enforcement tools; staff noted the lease expressly allows the city discretion to charge parking or special-use fees "so long as such activities are consistent with the LWCF Act." Staff also said the state offered some non-financial support — for example, access to a regional forester and letters of support for grant applications — and that the 25-year term helps the city qualify for some state grant programs.
Next steps: staff said the current clean version of the lease is now with the state and Oregon DOJ for final review; if the DOJ returns it in time, the lease will be scheduled for adoption at the November business meeting. Staff offered to circulate the redline showing negotiated edits to councilors after the meeting.
