One Night, Three Lessons: What the July 8 Council Meeting Taught About How Albany Makes Law

The Albany City Council met on July 8, 2026, with every member present: Mayor Alex Johnson II and Councilors Steph Newton, Michael Thomson, Carolyn McLeod, Chris Van Drimmelen, Ramycia McGhee, and Marilyn Smith. By the end of the night, a major land-use hearing had been continued to August 26 because a PDF export failure made the proposed changes invisible, a public-works ordinance had advanced 4–2 but must return for a second reading, a $1.64 million bridge grant was accepted without a single question, and the council received an entirely verbal briefing on license plate reader regulation before directing staff to explore a signage ordinance.

None of these outcomes was a scandal. Each one, though, teaches something concrete about how city law actually gets made — and about why the written record matters more than what anyone says out loud. This article walks through the meeting item by item, with the law that governs each step.

Disclosure: the written testimony referenced in this article was submitted by Greyson Paynter, who runs the Albany Records Project. A separate article will cover that testimony in detail. This review sticks to what the meeting record and the cited statutes show.

Lesson one: a code amendment you can't read isn't ready to adopt

The evening's main event was a legislative public hearing on Planning File DC-02-26 — a package of Albany Development Code amendments, split into two ordinances, implementing several new state housing laws (Senate Bill 974 and House Bills 2005, 2138, 3560, and 4037).

City code amendments are drafted as "redlines": old language struck through, new language underlined, so readers can see exactly what changes. Project planner Anne Catlin told the council that when the second ordinance's exhibit was saved from Word to PDF, the tracked changes didn't render. Her words: "when I saved it from a Word to PDF, it didn't show the track changes," and "the correct version got in the Planning Commission packet. I'm not sure what happened."

Think about what that means. The Planning Commission — an advisory body — reviewed a correct redline. The City Council — the body that actually votes — received a version where the amendments were invisible. And the public, invited to comment on the proposal, was commenting on a document nobody could fully read.

Staff recommended continuing the hearing to August 26, 2026, and the council agreed. That was the right call, and it's worth saying plainly: continuing a defective packet is what a careful process looks like. Catlin also committed, on the record, to updating the packet and pulling out a plain-language summary for the project website — a request from Councilor McGhee worth remembering in August.

One example shows why legibility matters. State law (ORS 197A.430, implementing HB 2138) requires cities to allow single-room-occupancy housing at up to three times the density allowed for multi-unit housing — which Albany implements by counting each SRO unit as 0.33 of a dwelling unit. In the packet as printed, that figure never legibly appears in the code text. On page 84 — a page where the redline markup rendered properly — the amendment shows a strikethrough through the "5" of "0.5" with "33" inserted beside it, which composes literally as "0. 33" and is easy to read as replacing 0.5 with 33 outright (a change that would make each SRO unit count as thirty-three dwelling units). Two parallel code sections still read 0.5, and only the narrative summary states 0.33. Catlin confirmed the intended figure from the dais: "It's not 33 units, it's 0.33. I just crossed out the 5." The catch — and this is the teaching point — is that a verbal correction does not amend an ordinance. Whatever the council eventually signs must legibly read 0.33 on its face, because the codified text, not the meeting audio, is the law.

Lesson two: a 4–2 vote that passes but doesn't pass

The night's most confusing moment, procedurally, was Item 6a: an ordinance rewriting AMC Chapter 15.06 (Private Construction of Public Improvements) to incorporate SB 974's new review deadlines. The roll call came back 4–2 — Yes: Thomson, Van Drimmelen, Smith, McGhee; No: Newton, McLeod — and the recorder announced, "so this will have to come back."

Why does a motion that got a majority "have to come back"? The answer is in the Albany Charter, and it's a rule every resident watching a council vote should know.

Charter § 37(1) allows an ordinance to be read twice by title and adopted at a single meeting only "by a unanimous vote of all councillors present." Two no votes defeated unanimity — so the single-night shortcut failed, and the ordinance must return for a second reading at a later meeting. At that second reading, the ordinary rule applies: Charter § 20 requires the concurrence of four councilors to decide any question. Four councilors already voted yes. So the 4–2 was not a defeat of the ordinance; it was a two-vote refusal to let it pass in one night. Unless a vote changes, the same ordinance is positioned to pass on August 26.

One more Charter provision completes the picture: under § 38, the mayor may veto an ordinance within three days by filing written reasons, and overriding a veto takes five votes. Four votes adopt; five override. On any closely divided item, the mayor's real power isn't the gavel — it's the veto.

The substance of the 4–2 split is just as instructive. The ordinance was presented under a state-compliance banner, but when councilors pressed, Assistant City Engineer Aaron Heemstra was candid about the scope: "Just the ones that refer to the timeline are the ones that are required... all the other ones are just cleanup of the code based off policy." In other words, by staff's own account, the majority of the changes in the "state-mandated" ordinance are discretionary local choices. Councilor Newton's position was that those two categories should travel separately: "if state law requires 5 changes, let's just make those 5 changes... instead of packaging everything together." Staff's position was that one uniform process for all project types is simpler to administer. Both are legitimate views — the takeaway for residents is simply that "the state made us do it" and "we chose to do it while we were in there" are different claims, and you're allowed to ask which one applies to any given line.

There is also a live statutory question underneath: SB 974 gives cities 30 days from receiving an application to confirm completeness and 120 days to approve or deny final engineering plans — and backs those deadlines with a court remedy called mandamus. Written testimony argued the draft ordinance attaches those clocks to the wrong things (approval expiration and applicant deadlines rather than the City's own review); staff defended the drafting as intentional readings of the bill. That disagreement is now about which clause of SB 974 governs which clock — precisely the kind of dispute best resolved by a written, side-by-side analysis in the August packet rather than competing summaries from the dais.

Lesson three: a briefing that exists only out loud

After a unanimous, question-free vote to accept a $1.64 million ODOT grant for preliminary engineering on the 3rd Avenue–Calapooia River bridge (with a $168,000 local match — the bridge is load-restricted and is the main access to Bryant Park), the council turned to the item that filled the public-comment period: automated license plate readers.

Some background. ALPRs are cameras paired with software that convert every passing license plate into searchable, time-stamped location data. Albany terminated its Flock Safety contract on May 27 by a 4–2 vote. Oregon's new statewide law, SB 1516 (2026, chapter 77, effective March 31), regulates law-enforcement ALPR use: authorized purposes, a 30-day default retention limit, logged searches, audits, and limits on vendors. It does not resolve what a city may do about private ALPR systems — and, a fact worth stating precisely, there is no ALPR chapter anywhere in the Albany Municipal Code today. The existing "ban" is a contract termination plus council direction, not codified law.

City Attorney Sean Kidd briefed the council on whether Albany could ban ALPRs citywide, including on private property. He delivered the briefing verbally, explaining that he did not want to "create a roadmap" for potential litigation, and identified real obstacles: the state has authorized police ALPR use (so a city cannot ban state or county law enforcement from using them — that part of the analysis is solid), and a private-only ban would invite Equal Protection, First Amendment, and Fifth Amendment takings arguments. He reported that the city's insurance carrier advised against a ban and said Albany would, to his knowledge, be the first U.S. city to prohibit ALPRs on private property.

Councilor Newton asked whether the insurer's response and the analysis could be provided in writing. Kidd declined, citing attorney-client privilege and the risk that the research could be "used against us in a lawsuit." The council did not vote; by consensus, it directed staff to explore a narrower signage or disclosure ordinance — requiring notice where ALPRs operate — for a late-August work session, likely August 24 or 26 depending on the agenda.

Three record notes for residents following this issue:

• Check every cited "law," whoever cites it. The briefing referenced a Minnesota statute requiring ALPR signage on private property. As of publication, Minnesota's operative ALPR statute (Minn. Stat. 13.824) contains no such private-property signage mandate; a signage requirement appears in bills pending in the 2026 Minnesota legislature (HF 4205/SF 4739). The same verification standard cuts the other way: two claims made by public commenters that night — a June 29, 2026 U.S. Supreme Court ruling protecting location data (Chatrie v. United States) and a federal retail-crime bill creating a technology center whose director would be appointed by ICE (H.R. 2853, passed the House May 12, 2026) — both check out against primary sources. Verify everything; the record doesn't care who's speaking.
• The count of private ALPR sites is unknown. The briefing cited roughly 30 Albany businesses known to law enforcement; a councilor's list had about six; no registry exists. A disclosure or registry rule would, whatever else it does, answer that question.
• Written analysis is a choice the council can make. Attorney-client privilege belongs to the client — the city — and the council can direct that a non-privileged options memo be prepared for public decision-making. Whether it does so before the August work session is the thing to watch.

The rest of the night, briefly

The council denied a request to fly a commemorative "Freedom 250" flag (a modified Betsy Ross design marking the country's 250th year) in the City Hall spot where the Pride flag flies in June; Councilor Smith, who presented the request as the flag policy requires, moved to deny it herself, and the motion passed by voice vote. The city manager's report disclosed that the council's decision on the 53rd & Pacific apartment appeal is now appealed to LUBA, Oregon's Land Use Board of Appeals — and a councilor noted the council's findings on that appeal could not be located online, a records gap worth tracking. The surplus lots at 9th & Jackson are heading back to council after the prospective buyer confirmed continued interest. And candidate filing for the fall council election opens August 1 — the seats are nonpartisan, and Councilor Smith urged colleagues not to delay important decisions because a campaign season is starting.

What to watch on August 26

The continued hearing is the test of everything promised on July 8. In the repackaged materials, look for: visible tracked changes; a plain-language summary posted with the packet; the SRO figure legibly reading 0.33; the child-care and crisis-center language staff offered to add; the corrected middle-housing land-division provisions staff said already exist in the fixed version; and a written breakdown of which changes state law requires and which are local choices — the split staff has already conceded out loud. Every one of those currently exists only in the spoken record. August 26 is when the paper catches up, or doesn't.

That's the habit this meeting teaches, and it's the one worth keeping: what's said at the dais is a promise; what's printed in the packet is the law. Read the packet.

Sources: July 8, 2026 Albany City Council agenda packet (pp. 21–255 DC-02-26; pp. 256–270 AMC 15.06; pp. 271–291 ODOT agreement); definitive merged July 8 transcript supplied July 9; Albany Charter §§ 16, 20, 37, 38; Enrolled SB 974 (2025); Enrolled HB 2138, HB 2005, HB 3560 (2025); HB 4037 (2026); SB 1516 (2026 Or. Laws ch. 77); ORS 197A.430; Minn. Stat. 13.824; MN HF 4205/SF 4739; Chatrie v. United States (U.S. June 29, 2026); H.R. 2853 (119th Cong.).