By Bentley Freeman

Cottage Grove City Councilor Jon Stinnett, Ward 2, resigned from the council Monday, Sept. 23, during a regularly scheduled meeting in the council chambers, saying his family will move to Eugene following continued threats and harassment. 

“I love this place more than I thought it was possible to love a place. It feels like family. It feels like a body part. It’s not easy to move and leave that behind,” Stinnett said in a prepared statement during the meeting. 

Citing his family’s upcoming move to Eugene and the recent threats he and recalled councilors Mike Fleck, Chalice Savage and Alex Dreher received — Stinnett says he doesn’t want to stay on the council just to continue fighting.

“I’m not equipped to fight. I’m not a fighter. This never had to be a fight,” Stinnett said — a fight that Stinnett says brewed during the city’s continued battle against its own homeless population. The battle began in 2022, when the city adopted a plan to open up several locations as overflow sites for a homeless shelter at Hwy 99, run by the nonprofit Carry It Forward. 

That site closed on June 30. There is still no place in the city for the unhoused to go during the day. At night, unhoused residents can stay at a dog park turned homeless camp from 7 pm to 7 am.

The first recall effort to push out Stinnett, Fleck and Savage called out their actions surrounding the homelessness crisis. However, it failed to receive enough valid signatures in October 2023.

Everything came to a head when a second recall effort pushed out Fleck, Savage and Dreher on July 30. 

After St. Vincent de Paul announced it would be pulling its deal to run a homeless shelter due to the recall, Stinnett recalls hearing cheers in the council chamber audience, which he says were celebrating the nonprofit leaving town.

However, Stinnett is still hopeful about the future of the town he has loved serving as city councilor and as former editor of the Cottage Grove Sentinel from 2006 to 2016. 

“I think Cottage Grove is going to be just fine, because I’m heartened, even despite the gloom lately,” Stinnett said. “Despite the growing and inherent danger — and I do not use that word lightly — of serving in this volunteer position, we still have people willing to step up and seek solutions in the best interest of the town.”

After Stinnett read his statement, Councilor Greg Ervin suggested adding another item to the agenda: appointing a temporary councilor until the Nov. 5 general election. According to Cottage Grove City Attorney Carrie Connelly, that appointment can only last until the next general election, per the city’s charter.

Without that appointment, the City Council would not have a quorum until well after the general election.

Mayor Candace Solesbee then made a motion to nominate Randell Lammerman — the current unopposed candidate for the Ward 2 position. “I talked to him before the meeting, and he said he was willing to step up,” Solesbee said.

“Right now, I volunteer to commit that if something were to change come Nov. 5, I would volunteer to step down,” Lammerman said. “No ifs, ands or buts.”

Stinnett then questioned Lammerman’s relationship with the previous two recall efforts. While Lammerman says he was neither for nor against, he says he was in favor “for the people having the right to do such things.”

Mayor Solesbee then called for a vote. Councilor Dana Merryday, Ervin and Solesbee voted in favor of appointing Lammerman. Stinnett was the only person to vote nay.

Stinnett later told Eugene Weekly that he didn’t vote against Lammerman personally, but voted against giving him the remainder of his term.

Stinnett also cites the recall election as changing his perspective. “I don’t think the recall solved anything, and it was kind of holding people personally to account, as opposed to wrongdoing, just for what was admitted to being a difference of opinion,” he says. 

Stinnett says the differences in opinion are mostly related to the council’s response to the city’s homeless crisis. He says his personal address was handed out to several unhoused residents by people in Cottage Grove, who would tell the homeless to go stay at Stinnett’s house because he is “so welcoming to them.”

Before Stinnett tendered his resignation and the council took a vote to fill the vacancy it created, the Cottage Grove City Council held a public comment period. Ken “Gnome” Ide, a homeless Cottage Grove resident wearing a Cottage Grove High School football jersey and gnome cap, asked the city to stop its dusk-to-dawn program and allow homeless residents to stay there 24/7. 

“Address the unaddressed with a plan that doesn’t involve removing a portion of your community. And I ask, how can you look at yourselves in the mirror and be discriminatory against any group of your community?” Ide said. 

Ide, a former resident of the city’s unmanaged camp on North Douglas Avenue, says he trespassed and was arrested on August 26, after trying to retrieve some of his property the Cottage Grove Police Department forced him to leave behind on August 22. This happened while Cottage Grove Public Works bulldozed all the property that was left behind — Ide’s included.

“This doesn’t really sound like an All-American city to me,” he said.