By Wayne Lee – Sports Editor
The Eagle Point City Council held their first meeting of the new year Jan. 13 which was dedicated to kicking off 2026 with four resolutions. This is the same process each year as Mayor Kathy Sell made appointments of various council members to 11 different boards or commissions around Jackson County.
The first resolution was the mayoral appointments. Sell named herself as the liaison to four area agencies. They are the Upper Rogue Chamber of Commerce, the Rogue Valley Metropolitan Planning Commission, the Rogue Valley Council of Governments board and the Rogue Valley Area Council on Transportation.
Jessica Welch was named to the Neighborhood Enhancement Commission while Bradd Hewitt was named to the Planning Commission as well as Jackson County Fire District 3. Stacy Fields was appointed to represent the city on the Southern Oregon Regional Economic Development, a non-profit organization that promotes growth in Jackson and Josephine counties and Lena Beach was appointed to the Medford Water Commission, Kira Zavala will represent the council with Jackson County School District 9 and Kevin Walruff will be the council representative with the Rogue Valley Metropolitan Planning Advisory Committee.
The three remaining resolutions gave final approval to the new, three-year labor agreements with the police employees union, the city staff employees represented by Teamsters Local 223, and the remaining senior, unrepresented employees. The new agreements will run from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2028.
The new agreements provide for a 3.25% increase in year one and a 3% increase in both years two and three. The city also agreed to the exact same increase for non-represented employees (senior staff).
The final resolution was to continue the city’s current health insurance agreement with Teamsters Local 223. Prunty explained that the plan continues to be the most cost-effective option and if costs exceed the established limits, they will still pay 50% of any remaining balance. All the resolutions were approved unanimously.
Earlier in the meeting during the time for public comments on items not on the agenda, a local citizen told the council of his opposition to the Flock cameras in Eagle Point. Flock Safety is a company that provides automated license plate readers that feed into a national database to identify vehicles listed as wanted by police.
He felt the cameras were just one more intrusion into personal privacy and cited various cities that had filed suit against the company to have the cameras removed. Councilor Lena Beach immediately moved to have the cameras removed but it wasn’t an agenda item to act on. Mayor Kathy Sell suggested it be added to a future agenda for discussion.
Eagle Point has five such cameras in operation, two of which are placed at the main exits of Walmart since it generates the majority of theft calls. Given the time of the theft and a vehicle description, local police can look up the plate and identify the owner.
The American Civil Liberties Union has identified some concerns. They noted a police officer in Texas was using the system to run a nationwide search for a woman who had a self-induced abortion (a crime in Texas) in an attempt to locate and extradite her for prosecution. The organization also noted Flock’s ties to ICE stating, “emails from police departments in Oregon also shed light on how local police are providing informal assistance to ICE.” The Flock system is directly tied into the SAVER program of the DHS according to the ACLU.
There are local examples of success stories. A camera in Medford captured a photo of a plate on a vehicle whose owner was listed as wanted for kidnapping back on the other side of the country two weeks earlier. Medford police found the car, arrested the driver and the kidnap victim was flown home the very next day.
There was also a pair of bandits that were driving up and down I-5 stopping at Walmart stores along the way for snatch-and-run thefts. The Grants Pass store had the cameras and state police were able to apprehend the thieves.
The pros and cons of this issue will be up for discussion at a future meeting.
