In St. Helens, it's no longer business as usual
by Bill Eagle


Phil Barlow and Doug Morton both ran for St. Helens City Council because they thought that they would have the ability to be a positive force for change.   They ran against well entrenched incumbents and won as a result of hard work, person to person contact, and serious and very intelligent campaigning.   They wanted to see a better city, and they pledged themselves to work for it.

Councilor Keith Locke also entered public service for similar reasons.    He too cared for his city.  Keith was a cancer survivor and felt that God was giving him another chance to do something positive for his community and the world around him.   

On April 5, 2006 the St. Helens City Council (of that time) passed ordinance 2991.  Ordinance 2991 temporarily suspended the form government established by the City Charter revision of 1968 and gave the City Administrator the power to act as City Manager. 

The old  Councils thinking, at that time, was that this would give them a chance to see how well things would work with a Manager type of system, as opposed to the existing system of a strong Mayor/Council.   A hand picked Charter Committee was assigned the task of rewriting the City Charter into a form that could later be presented to the voters.

Phil Barlow, Doug Morton receiving oath of office from Administrator Brian Little

Council President, Keith Locke

In November of 2006, Phil Barlow and Doug Morton won election to the City Council.  In addition, Keith Locke, a second term council person, discovered that he no longer seemed to have the ability to represent his constituents.  **According to sources close to Keith, he originally was appointed to oversee the Police Department.   It came as a surprise when he dropped in to speak to the Chief and was shown a memo forbidding the Chief or any employee to talk directly to a City Councilor either in public or private.  All communications were henceforth supposed to be routed though the City Administrator.  It would be up to the City Administrator to communicate with the City Council, not City employees.   

This memo did not sit well with Keith, nor did it sit well with either Phil Barlow or Douglas Morton.  All three of these Council people felt that they were elected so that they could work for the public.  It appeared to them that Ordinance 2991 made it very difficult for them to do much for the City or for the citizens who showed their trust by electing them to office.

Phil Barlow did more than complain.  He immediate started telephoning colleges and universities and spoke to various Professors of political science regarding different types of city charters.  With some of this information in mind, Phil then spoke to his attorney.   Phil was concerned that the proposed City Charter changes would further isolate the operation of the city from pubic scrutiny.   With his attorney's help he drew up, ordinance 3030.
The City Council held its first meeting of the year on January 3rd 2007.  This was the day that The Mayor, Phil Barlow, and Douglas Morton were to be sworn in.  Citizen comment was asked for, and several people who lived in the Ridgecrest subdivision commented that they felt the City was ignoring their plight.

Strangely enough, Keith Locke and some of the other Council people gave the impression that they were kept "in the dark" about Ridgcrest.   Evidently the City Administrator did not think it necessary to bother them with citizen problems.  Doug Morton informed the Administrator that he wanted the City to do something about these citizen problems, and he would like to see what information the city had on Ridgecrest.

After the Council had completed most of its business, the agenda called for Council member reports.  Phil Barlow mentioned his new Ordinance.  Both the City Administrator and the Mayor told him that the Council was not the place to bring it up, that it would have to be introduced during a work session.

Phil stated that he thought that the ordinance was important enough so that the entire work session should be devoted to it.

The first work Session of the year was held on January 17th at 1:30 PM. 
It was a busy meeting, with a long agenda filled with items of importance. The first item was a class given by Andy Jordan (the cities' new contract attorney) Jordan called his class Civic Law 101.  The class title: "A Review of Power, Responsibilities, Ethics and Liabilities of Council member." This item was introduced at the request of Mayor Peterson after Phil Barlow tried to present an ordinance on his own.


Jordan brought up some very interesting topics, some of which were questioned by City Council people.  He stated that City Council people were in no way qualified to act as Administrators.  He also stated that Council people should not be allowed to lobby one another.  When pressed, he stated that this was just a personal opinion and not law.  He implied that he was just "looking out for their best interests."

Next Page