NEWBERG, Ore. — A signature campaign is underway for a ballot initiative that would create a “Rural Heritage Park” designation restricting future use of qualifying Chehalem Parks and Recreation District (CPRD) properties, including Bob and Crystal Rilee Park, following the CPRD board’s June 25 vote to allow mountain biking at the park.
The initiative, backed by a petition committee called Protect Heritage Parks which includes current CPRD board directors Jason Fields and Matt Smith as petitioners, began circulating for signatures July 28. To qualify for the November ballot, organizers must collect just over 2,600 valid signatures from registered voters within CPRD’s boundaries, according to chief petitioner John Rueter.
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According to a text message sent out from Protect Heritage Parks petition committee, “hundreds of voters” signed during signing events over the weekend, but final signature counts from the weekend’s efforts could not be confirmed by press time.
If the campaign does not receive enough verified signatures to qualify in time, organizers said they will continue gathering signatures to qualify for the May 2027 primary ballot.
Records filed with the Oregon Secretary of State‘s office identify three chief petitioners on the Protect Heritage Parks committee: Rueter, Fields, and Smith. Fields and Smith cast the two dissenting votes when the CPRD board voted 3-2 on June 25 to allow biking within 90 days at Rilee Park, following debate over what to allow at the 325-acre Parrett Mountain property. This came after a 3-2 board vote in 2023, when the CPRD board of a different makeup voted to ban biking facilities from the park.
“Things feel almost impossible to settle at a board level,” Smith said. “If we have another board election, something changes, one person changes their mind; it changes everything. These are all three-two decisions. They’re back and forth from one year to the next year. There’s some things that should be governed by kind of a higher law.”
Under the proposed ordinance, a Rural Heritage Park designation would apply to CPRD-owned properties of at least 100 contiguous acres that meet at least two of four additional criteria: prior agricultural, grazing, or farming use before CPRD acquired the property; agricultural or equestrian use within 20 years before acquisition; the presence or past presence of equestrian facilities or regular equestrian use; or acquisition through donation or purchase below fair market value.
Rueter said Bob and Crystal Rilee Park would meet the designation’s criteria as written. The initiative is not limited to that property, he said, and would apply to any current or future CPRD land that qualifies.
Smith clarified that the ordinance would not restrict land donors who want to donate their land for a specific purpose like mountain biking, golf, or other activities — as long as CPRD agrees to the terms.
“It just protects the land if they want it to be protected, and takes it out of the board of directors or out of staff decision, and I think that’s important,” he said.
The district’s board would be required to designate any current property meeting those criteria at its next meeting following certification of the measure by the Yamhill County Clerk, according to the ordinance text. Designated properties would be limited to pedestrian, community event, agricultural, and equestrian uses.
The ordinance defines “pedestrian use” to exclude bicycles, e-bikes, skateboards, and scooters. It also defines “intensive development” — which would be prohibited on designated properties — to include data and server farms, solar-panel farms, cell towers, and other commercial and industrial uses.
“How do we assure the public that if someone has a century farm and they want to donate it, or if they have a farm that’s been in their family for years or decades, how do they know that we’re going to protect it?” Smith said. “This ordinance protects that, and so that’s where the data center narrative comes in.”
Data Centers Brought Into the Conversation
Signage and marketing around the proposed ordinance have mentioned data centers as a facility that would be prohibited under the ordinance. Smith and Fields said the options laid out in the petition’s marketing have been hypotheticals rooted in current events in other communities.
Smith, Rueter, and Fields all said there have been no data centers, solar farms, or other development proposed on CPRD properties, and they do not want community members to think there have been any suggestions about that. However, Smith said the debate around Bob and Crystal Rilee Park raised awareness around a gap in they believe exists within CPRD’s bylaws not addressed by any ordinances.
“The user conflict [between mountain biking and equestrian facilities] pointed out what is going on, and how it’s become so difficult to settle,” Smith said. “But we need a way to resolve this, and in my opinion, this is the best way to do it. And it’s transparent, it’s open — the public sees it, and they get a vote on it.”
Per its bylaws, the CPRD board is required to make decisions, such as land sale or land use, based on the district’s mission statement: “The mission of Chehalem Park and Recreation District (CPRD) is to connect and enrich our community through parks, recreation, open space, natural resources, and educational opportunities,” according to the CPRD website.
Additionally, Rilee Park is zoned EF-40, Exclusive Farm Use, under Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development’s zoning ordinance. That ordinance permits or conditionally permits only uses specified under Oregon’s statewide farmland-protection statute. Data centers and server farms are not listed among them.
Fields said the initiative does not depend on zoning changing in the near term.
“Our initiative isn’t based on the assumption that zoning laws will change tomorrow,” he said. “It’s based on the principle that public heritage parks deserve permanent protections regardless of future policy changes.”
The effort grew from the dispute over Rilee Park into a broader initiative after residents and volunteers raised questions about whether other CPRD properties carried similar long-term use protections, Fields said.
“The answer was that there were no long-term safeguards,” he said. “That’s why this effort expanded beyond one park or one issue.”
Director Petitioners
The Protect Heritage Parks Petition Committee is legally distinct from the Friends of Chehalem Parks PAC, which Newsberg reported in June was discussing a similar ordinance limited to Rilee Park. Oregon law requires a separate committee for initiative petition campaigns, and that while there is “crossover membership” between the two groups, Rueter said, Protect Heritage Parks represents a broader coalition.
Fields, who along with Smith is a sitting CPRD director as well as a co-petitioner, said he does not see a conflict between the two roles.
“Serving as an elected official doesn’t eliminate a person’s constitutional rights as a citizen,” he said, noting that he and Smith stated their positions publicly during board deliberations ahead of the June 25 vote.
Smith said he hopes the ordinance, if passed, will help the district, board, staff, and residents move past this issue and direct their energy to other park matters, while setting up guidelines for how to manage large, donated agricultural parks like Bob and Crystal Rilee Park in the future.
“After this passes, we can heal as a community, and I think it’ll be better for CPRD going forward,” Smith said. “We’ll have the trust. We’ll have donations in the future that we otherwise may not get, and so I think there’s a lot of positive here, and I hope people see that side of it instead of just the political slogans.”
The Yamhill County Circuit Court issued a final ballot title for the initiative in late July following the statutory review process, clearing the petition for circulation, Rueter said. If the petition gathers enough signatures, the ordinance will be on the November election ballot.
CPRD staff did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
