YCAP performs key function demanding support from all

The Yamhill County Board of Commissioners appeared to solve a major interagency communications problem last week — at least for the immediate future — with allocation of $650,000 in federal pass-through funds to the sheriff’s office.

The money, provided through the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act, will be spent on radio system upgrades and 15 more portable radios. That will ensure deputies can engage in effective emergency communication with officers from state and local partner agencies operating on different frequencies.

We can only wish it were as straightforward with the communication system connecting the nonprofit Yamhill Community Action Partnership with its multitude of partners and clients. After all, the stakes are equally high, as the agency spends almost $17 million a year helping our most vulnerable with food, shelter and other basic needs.

Unfortunately, the key players here also seem to be operating on different frequencies of late. And we fear it’s going to take more than simply equipping them with compatible radios to get them all back on the same wavelength.

YCAP’s communication challenges seem to loom particularly large with Newberg, its nonprofit Community Wellness Collective, and, through ongoing amplification of complaints from those quarters, the county commission. It’s not all smooth sailing in McMinnville either, but seems to be going better here.

One major disruption came in the form of protracted delays in the construction of full-service navigation centers of 36 beds in McMinnville and 22 beds in Newberg, due to a host of issues almost entirely outside YCAP control. But both centers promise to soon be in full operation, and measures are being taken to address shelter needs in the interim.

Another major disruption came by way of the ouster of County Commissioner Mary Starrett from the YCAP board, and the county’s refusal to accept the seating of Commissioner Kit Johnston in her stead. That broke a crucial link that has now remained broken for almost a full year.

However, Starrett’s removal was just a symptom of increasingly troubled relations, not a triggering cause in and of itself. She forfeited the trust of fellow YCAP board members by publicly siding with the aggrieved Newberg parties, rupturing that relationship beyond repair.

The standoff has gone on long enough.

Starrett is halfway through her third and final term, so will be soon be leaving the commission anyway, and her most strident commission partner just lost in a bid for re-election. Perhaps that will permit some form of reconciliation.

But getting the navigation centers fully operational and restoring county representation on the YCAP board represent more of a starting point than ending point.

Regardless of how things turn out with the centers and county, YCAP needs to redouble efforts to restore good relations with unhappy partners and clients, and it is incumbent on them to respond in kind. Assuring all members of the community access to food, shelter and other basics should be a top priority for every player in the field, bar none.

There are more than enough checks and balances to ensure accountability for agency finances and management, as YCAP amply demonstrated in a recent presentation to the county commission.

It’s personalities and politics where things have largely gone astray. Those have to be put aside in order to restore harmony in the performance of a vital community function.

As Paul Newman famously said in “Cool Hand Luke,” “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

It’s time to dial down the rancor, dial up the goodwill and begin restoring the channels that have been failing us. That won’t prove as easy as getting new radios into the hands of patrol deputies, but failure is simply not an option.