Remarks by Jason Ruston
23 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 1
- Play at 45:44
“I attended the library board meeting, and I'm just not sure about the process question on this. One of the things that had come up was brought up, I believe, back in 2023, and that was a proclamation supporting banned books week, something that seemed to be very popular within the board meeting, had a lot of support. But when I looked into this. It required an official approval from the Library Board 2023. The actual week is October 5th, and so the Library Board will not be meeting before the week will be passed. So I wanted to know how we can get this on the agenda for October 5th to have a…”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:06:06
“Councilor Rustin, can you tell us when the preliminary agenda was published and Mike Schurk was listed. I'm assuming at the time of publication we have not received other applications? That's correct. Can you tell us when the other two applications were?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:09:46
“Councilor Rustin? OK, Councilor Rustin, I'm a little torn on this. In one last council meeting, I suggested that we postpone the appointment of mayor. Sorry, am I not talking into?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:10:04
“Sorry, talking to Michael. I figure that was really more for the recall process to go through. In this scenario, I do feel that while I appreciate that the public should be able to comment, I don't know that the folks that are applying are exactly unknown entities within the city. As a matter of fact, I would say that they're all fairly well-known. So let's say, I could go either way on this one. I don't know that it would necessarily hurt anything to wait two weeks, but I'm not entirely sure that we're going to get a lot more public comment about the individuals than we did today. I mean, I…”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:12:27
“Councillor Rustin, given the fact that we haven't, yeah, I don't think this now is the time to sit here and decide. what questions we're going to ask, I would be in favor of allowing a five-minute window for each candidate to stay there, make their case.”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:14:08
“Councilor Rustin, are you okay with that?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:14:54
“Is that after each question we can ask a follow-up question, or do we need to go through all four and then ask the follow-up questions?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:21:29
“Councilor Russell, follow up question. I was appointed. just like four of the other people here who said that breeds just trust by nature, you would be an appointee. So I guess the question is, how would appointing you help establish trust that the other appointees have not?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:23:05
“Ask another follow-up question. Sure. There's a lot going on in social media, Facebook. I've got my opinions on it. I just wanted to get what your take is on just the level of discourse.”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:27:09
“Sure. Have you previously served on a board or committee any city or organization.”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:32:09
“Councilor Rustin, what do you think are the most important issues now facing North Plains?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:32:58
“Oh. Sir, go ahead. Same question that I asked earlier. We talked about the lack of trust. You would be another appointee. So therefore, according to the definition that's been thrown out there, you know, we would have to build trust. How would you go about doing that?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:43:14
“Okay, Councillor Ruston. So having been sitting there, what, two and a half months ago, you know, I applaud you guys for raising your hand. And, you know, the challenge I think that either of you are going to run into is what I'm running into is, A lot of times, you don't even know what you don't know. I had no previous government experience. I've served on boards and things like that. And I agree that you are never going to please all people all the time. I don't think that that's a realistic expectation that anyone should set. how are you going to work with the other side? You work with…”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:47:58
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:53:25
“Can I get a motion? Sure, Councillor Raulston. I move to authorize the hiring of Perry Rovell. Rovell?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:53:34
“Roll bell. This is a new program to a communications supervisor and authorize the interim city manager to negotiate starting salary.”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 2:05:55
“Yeah, Councilor Russ, I think that there are still so many questions that are unanswered, starting with what exactly is a data center? I agree, I don't want a data center backing up to my neighborhood. But I think it's naive just to say no data centers, right? Because we don't have a good working definition of it. We don't know what, I've worked with companies where they host their own large language models. And is that technically a data center? So are we going to end up banning other types of businesses that are like a data center? I don't think that we've consulted the planning commission…”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 2:21:39
“Councilor Rustin. Thank you, Councilor Rustin. Yeah, I guess we might as well kick this off. I feel like I'm on a roll over the last couple sessions. I think this falls under one of those, I don't necessarily know what I don't know on this. I don't have the history on it. But as I understand this, and maybe Emily, you can give me some clarification on this. My concern is that if this is not adopted, the housing needs analysis goes away. That was, and the housing needs analysis was done, I think, by Portland State University, is that correct? The original one? Right, right, but I don't…”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 2:22:42
“HNC, which is basically going to guarantee a change in mandating high density housing in North Plains. Is that correct? Am I understanding this properly?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 2:36:36
“Councilor Rustin. Yeah, Councilor Rustin. Regarding the DLCD's interpretation, is North Plains the only city, do you know, that is running up against this particular... I mean, are we the only small town that is sort of caught, sounds like, between a rock and a hard spot on this?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 2:42:31
“Councilor Russell. Yeah, Councilor Rustin, based on one of Emily's earlier comments, I am actually very concerned, is probably the right word, with the process of going through an HCA. I think that we are going to eventually have to do a UGB. You are going to have to have this. And what she had said, and Emily, correct me if I'm wrong, there is a low-cost option to appeal the DLCD. Did I get that right? DLCD. you know, ruling. And it just seems to me if there's a low-cost option to go through the appeal and we don't have to have everything done by January 1st, 2027, it doesn't make a lot of…”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 2:49:16
“Yeah, I just want to make a clarification on this. I am not necessarily in love with ordinance 49. I don't know enough one way or the other. I think just going down the same trail of logic as Council Ugarte to go ahead and take the, we can always go ahead and amend the ordinance down the road. We can go ahead and challenge the DLCD and it's a relatively low cost compared to restarting. But we're going to lose the if we decide that we want to do an HCA down the road that the new state laws are zoning is in the best interest of North Plains for the sake of affordability. We can still do that.…”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 2:58:06
“Aye, and I think I've explained my reasoning.”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026