Sunset Park officials are "cautiously optimistic" about the next steps to safeguard the nonprofit private park's future after getting hit with a massive tax bill this month and running into other financial headwinds.
In remarks made to the Gales Creek, Roy and Verboort CPO 13 during a Wednesday evening meeting held in the Banks Public Library, Rob Ireland, who serves as the park's pro bono lawyer, gave an update and took questions about the park.
He began with an overview of the park’s history. Established after World War II as a private park open to the public, it has hosted a gun range, dance hall, sports fields, Schlegel Hall, and Sunset Speedway at various times over nearly eight decades.
Several issues currently confront Banks Sunset Park, he said.
For many years, the park was host to an outdoor shooting range, leading to lead contamination in the soil.
"The gun club shutting down triggered an event with DEQ," Ireland said. He said the state's environmental agency contacted the park in 2023 to clean up the lead, about 1.2 acres. He said that the company contracted to examine the issue found lead as far down as two feet into the soil.
"And so we hired an environmental consultant, we went into negotiations with DEQ, DEQ says "well, if you enter a voluntary cleanup program, it'll avoid penalties, give you time, we're gonna do this slow so we can make sure we do it right, and you can keep the park open," he said.
The issue of how to pay for all of this came up, Ireland said, and DEQ pointed the nonprofit in the direction of a grant program to pay for such environmental hazards from Business Oregon, the state's economic development agency.
However, the Banks Sunset Park Association, a 501(c)4 organization, which differs slightly from the more well-known 501(c)3 status, didn't qualify for the grant, so the park began a process to transfer the park property to a new nonprofit that had the correct tax status to qualify for the grant.
This new nonprofit will own the property, be able to accept tax-deductible contributions, and accept grants, while the original association will maintain the property and continue to run the Banks BBQ and manage other events. Ireland said the new board's mission is directed toward long-term goals and planning.
The new organization, which shares two board members with the old, is called the Banks Sunset Park and Civic Center, and the park's sale to the new organization was completed in March 2025, with a deed that requires that the property forever be a park.
"We got some bad news from Business Oregon," he said. After signing a contract with the agency in 2023, the person the association had been working with retired, and new leadership said the promises made were not actually in line with the state agency's policies.
"A new guy came in, and he looked at it, and he said, "No, I don't think you guys should get brownfield money, because we think you were part of the organization that was responsible for the shooting range when it was active," he said.
"This was after we spent $68,000 on lead surveying," Ireland said. With no forgivable loan, and in the hole for the $68,000, the next steps were uncertain.
"We thought we were on the right path, Business Oregon says "sorry, no money," DEQ starts pressuring us, "hey we're expecting you to do something, and if you don't, you're gonna go into this penalty phase where we can force you to start cleaning it up, if you don't do it, we're going to do it," Ireland said.
Then it got worse.
Just before the park's 2025 Banks BBQ Truck and Tractor Pull was held in August, the park received a letter from Washington County Assessment and Taxation.
Ireland said the county would be taking the park's nonprofit status away as it pertained to property taxes, and that their property tax rate, typically around $5,000 annually, would be charged under a different status.
"You're now in this no-man's land where you're gonna be taxed at the highest rate, it's too late for you to do anything about it, and we're gonna be sending you the tax bill sometime in the fall," he recounted.
Ireland said the letter indicated that the group could file an application to revisit the issue for later years, but that wouldn't help the tax bill sent in November.
Ireland described the county as "not helpful at that time," when the group tried to tell the county's tax department that there appeared to be a misunderstanding.
Then came the tax bill.
"The tax bill was shocking," Ireland said. "It not only took away the exempt status, but it almost tripled the assessed value."
From $5,000 per year, the new value was over $100,000.
Ireland believes the county didn't assess the property at the correct value for a number of reasons, ranging from a misunderstanding over the park's zoning, the lead in the soil, and other reasons.
As a result, the group is now engaged in a lawsuit with the county, but there has been some movement toward a better resolution after the park engaged the help of two state legislators and a county commissioner.
"We had a meeting, and assessment and taxation admitted that they didn't look at the deed, they didn't even look at the civic center to see if it was a nonprofit, they didn't call us they didn't provide notice, and they had somebody new come out this summer, they saw the development, and they never looked at the development code for the park, they simply put us at the highest level," he said.
"So we'll call it a huge misunderstanding," he said. While legal action is still active, he said on Wednesday that the nonprofit status was back as of 3 p.m. Nov. 19.
"But we don't know what our tax bill is yet. We've been promised that the assessment team is reworking the value," he said.
"But at this point, we're cautiously optimistic that Washington County is going to be workable," he added.
On the DEQ front, the park's lead issue has now been moved from state jurisdiction to federal jurisdiction, and they will be visited by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 10 representatives in January.
As for Business Oregon funding, the group is working on that front, but Ireland didn't yet have a substantive update.
Ireland urged the community to stay updated by visiting the park's website and Facebook page, and said that further steps would be communicated to the public.
