Lincoln City Council Moves to Annex Ashland In Effort to End Mayoral Mansion Debacle
Reported by: Dr. Bird, Janitor
In this week’s Lincoln City Council meeting, Councilman Tom Beckius proposed the annexation of Ashland, making it within Lincoln’s city limits.
The bizarre proposal would annex a two-foot path adjacent to Cornhusker Highway leading into Ashland, zig-zagging to avoid any unwanted municipalities, such as Waverly or Greenwood, and swallow up Ashland and all desirable waterfront property around it.
Sources say that Councilman Beckius was pressured to bring forth the proposal to appease the mayor, thus ending any controversy from the public debacle of Mayor Leirion Gaylor-Baird’s new waterfront mayoral mansion that was built in Ashland, well outside of Lincoln’s city limits.
The mayor and city council members, like all public officials, are required to be full-time residents in the districts that they represent. Full-time residency varies by office, but the requirement is typically considered fulfilled when the officeholder resides within their district at least 50% of the year.
The proposal passed 6-1 with Councilman Richard Meginnis being the sole opposer to the bill. During discussion, he pointed out that the annexation of Ashland would be unprecedented, especially with several municipalities left unannexed in between. Council Meginnis’s “poor logic” was quickly silenced for not being a “team player” by the remaining councilmembers.
Multiple reports confirmed that Councilwoman Washington could be seen googling “beachfront homes for sale in Oregon” after the proposal passed.
In an interview with the mayor after the meeting adjourned, Mayor Gaylor-Baird remarked: “This plan is really ingenious. Every time I left town, Jane [Raybould] used the acting-mayoral powers, causing me a huge headache when I returned—no matter how many times I asked her to stop! We have even threatened to not back her next lost cause…I mean, next congressional campaign, if she wouldn’t stop. But now with the annexation of Ashland, when I go home at night, I’ll still technically be in the City of Lincoln!”
