This story was originally published on LincolnChronicle.org and is used with permission.
The owner of the Alsi Resort Hotel in Bayshore has agreed not to sign a contract to house Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after an hour-long negotiation Thursday with the Waldport city manager.
Details of the negotiation have not yet been made public, but Thursday’s announcement followed rumors that began swirling on social media last Friday that the hotel had signed an agreement with an ICE contractor.
The negotiation came on the heels of a Waldport city council meeting Wednesday attended by 120 south county residents who filled the community center to voice opposition to the controversial agency having any sanctuary or footprint in the community.
After the council moved to dispense with its other business, city manager Dann Cutter began the meeting by giving an update and timeline of city actions.
“On Monday morning I spoke directly with one of the co-owners of the hotel and she confirmed that no contract had been signed,” Cutter told the crowd. “I then spoke to the federal contracting group that was responsible for reaching out … to provide these types of services … and they said no contract in Waldport has been signed. There is no agreement in Waldport.”
Based on other information he received about the condition of the hotel’s water and septic system, Cutter said he presumed the rumor started on Facebook was likely not true.
But then Cutter said Wednesday he “got a very different piece of information.”
After speaking with the real estate representative of the hotel, which has been on the market for several years, as well as primary owner Moni Mansano, Cutter learned Immigration and Customs Enforcement had reached out to the hotel seeking a “bank of rooms for a period of time” but that Mansano had not made a decision.
“Now that we have confirmation of that I think that informs a lot of what we’re doing here today and what this council will be talking about,” Cutter said.
Cutter said he explained to Mansano the significant outpouring of opposition from the community. The city received 700 emails this week, with all but a handful urging the hotel owner to reject the contract.
Cutter told the audience he had not yet heard back from Mansano, but that the 80-year-old owner had asked him to pass a message on to the community. Mansano said the hotel has been steadily losing money since he purchased it in 2021, the same year he requested it be annexed into the city.
Mansano told Cutter he thought he had sold the property in 2023 when a Colorado company sought to transform it into a high-end drug rehabilitation center. But Mansano said the Bayshore homeowners association “got in the way of that.”
Cutter finished by telling audience members he explained to Mansano that by signing a contract with ICE, he would do significant damage to the community and urged against it.
Mansano and his wife, Dee, have a storied history as Hollywood makeup artists with credits including the movies Mortal Kombat, Runaway Train, Hook and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Hotel records show their home address as Las Vegas.
Community comments
The council eventually passed a resolution strongly opposing the presence of ICE with Mayor Heide Lambert’s voice breaking with emotion as she finished reading it. That came after 15 audience members spoke eloquently and passionately in opposition of ICE and its efforts to operate in the county.
Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, was first to speak.
“This community is rightfully concerned about the evolving evidence that ICE wants to use this town as a bedroom for a large-scale detention facility just south of Newport at their airport,” Gomberg said. He urged the audience to “constructively discourage” that from happening.
The evidence is elusive but clear something is going on, he said. Jobs are being posted, hotel space is being requested and small businesses are being asked to deliver water or haul away thousands of gallons of human waste daily.
“And state agencies are now being contacted and asked about the process for escaping our state land use process and our local zoning,” Gomberg said. “And earlier today a story came out in Washington D.C. that apparently a group of contractors actually met at the airport earlier this year.”
The news article reported that contractors were told that federal agencies are prepared to waive a number of requirements in order to fast-track a process in Lincoln County and that the agency will not rely on its normal bidding process but run it through the U.S. Navy so it does not have to engage in competitive bidding or public disclosure.
“And that their plans are to house 200 or more people in tents at the Newport airport for an average of 72 hours before they put them on planes and send them God knows where,” Gomberg said.
This will not be good for Lincoln County or Waldport and its tourist economy, the workforce or its public safety budget if the city is forced to respond to the protests that will arise with an increased ICE presence in the community, he said. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is more concerned with detaining people than saving lives, Gomberg said, as evidenced by the disruption of the Coast Guard rescue helicopter operations in Newport.
“And I’m particularly disappointed that they’ve been unwilling to do this in an open, honest and transparent way,” Gomberg said. “And instead, we’ve been forced to ferret out the information of what’s going on in our very own communities.”
He closed by urging the council to join other cities in Lincoln County which have voiced strong opposition the presence of ICE in their communities.
The audience responded with a standing ovation.
15 speakers
Amy Anderson of Waldport, a member of Indivisible Waves which had encouraged people to attend the meeting, urged the council to use zoning laws to keep the Alsi hotel from housing ICE personnel — something Cutter said on the city’s website could not be done. The two met after the meeting and Cutter said he would revisit zoning laws to see if something had been missed as he too adamantly opposes the agency’s presence in the community.
“Any short-term gain from the hotel bookings would be outweighed by long-term loss in tourism and reputation,” Anderson told the council. “And for our immigrant neighbors, many of whom have lived and worked here for decades, ICE’s presence creates fear that affects workplaces, schools and public safety. And that fear ripples through our entire community.”
Yachats Community Presbyterian Church pastor Bob Barrett said he was deeply troubled by ICE seeking shelter in the community but also with the city’s statement online that “Government must be neutral.”
“Neutrality in situations like this is never actually neutral,” Barrett said. “It becomes a position that allows the expansion of an enforcement system that has already harmed families, traumatized children and targeted some of the most vulnerable people in our region.”
Allowing ICE in Waldport would tarnish how the city is viewed and is contrary to the relaxed coastal atmosphere that attracts visitors. Housing agents, Barrett said, would convey a message of “surveillance, instability and conflict.”
Even if Waldport officials cannot prohibit the hotel from housing agents, he said, “leadership still matters” and carries weight.
“Silence can be interpreted as consent,” Barrett said. “Clarity tells the community where its leaders stand and signals that the well-being of residents, especially those most vulnerable, remains the city’s priority.”
Willow Kasner, a fifth-generation resident of the Beaver Creek area, also encouraged Waldport to stand with other cities to oppose ICE.
“Let’s remember that this is not a left versus right thing,” she said. “This is a bottom versus top thing. And we are all at the bottom – together. Let’s stand united and refuse to fall for the divide and conquer tactics that play at corporate and national levels.”
Joe Sewall, a lifelong Waldport resident, walked to the podium in well-worn work boots to express his “vehement opposition” to any form of support for ICE.
“This is really an attack on all of us,” Sewall said. “In a time when unidentified, masked secret police can whisk a person away to anywhere on Earth without transparency, due process or consequences based solely on an accusation – none of us are safe.”
For those who think they will not be affected, he asked them to consider the relocation of the Coast Guard rescue helicopter “which was not just a separate issue but a statement of values.”
He said the current administration and its supporters do not care how much collateral damage is inflicted in the persecution of its victims.
“There will be more collateral damage,” he said. “They will of course primarily target our Latino community members,” who Sewall described as friends and neighbors who deserve safety and dignity and not state-sanctioned terror or prolonged debate over their worthiness to exist here in peace.
He finished by saying he hopes fellow business owners will understand not only how immoral but also unwise it will be to attempt to profit by collaborating with ICE. If they do, Sewell said, they should expect a “prolonged and uncomfortable public spotlight” for what is a “profoundly un-American attack” on the community.
Mike Sorenson’s voice shook as he said how nervous he was to be speaking but that he felt it was his duty. He moved to the country at age seven and lived in the country illegally until he was 13 “and the day that I became a U.S. citizen over two decades ago was one of the best days of my life. I love the diversity and inclusion of this country and I love that I saw that reflected in the city and the community of Waldport.”
Bayshore resident Holly Romero, who is Latina, moved to the area 20 years ago from New Mexico where she said there is a very different view of immigration.
“As my grandfather would tell us – we didn’t move to this country, this country moved to us.”
She works with nonprofits serving the Latino community and says she wants people to understand what it is like for them. “Latinos here are terrified, they are completely terrified,” she said.
Romero said she and other Latinos carry their passports with them at all times because they know they are being targeted for how they look as well as their names and that she is not sure how she could stay in a community housing immigration agents.
“I can’t be terrified every time I go to the grocery store,” Romero said. “I can’t be terrified every time I go to work. I can’t be terrified every time I go outside. Or drive my car …”
She asked that people support the Latino community every way they can, and appreciates that people recognize their labor but also that people are more than their work.
“We are musicians, we are dancers, we are writers, we are poets, we are chefs,” Romero said. “We bring so much culture and diversity to this country, to this state, to this county and I know you appreciate that even though this current regime does not. So please let us not remain neutral, let us not just stand by because of course neutrality is complicity and we have a lot of beautiful people here to protect.”
The council’s resolution
Council member Jerry Townsend made a brief statement before Lambert read the resolution opposing ICE that passed unanimously.
“This is the most inspiring display of public leadership I’ve ever seen,” Townsend said. “And I congratulate you. There are so many people here who are articulate, knowledgeable and principled. And that keeps us all together. So keep it up.”
Resolution 1328 says in part that Waldport is “committed to the diversity of cultures in which our country is based, and the unrestricted support of all those of differing ideas and communities … the current direction and operation of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency has created legitimate fear among many peoples and represents a disregard of American values … the housing and actions of ICE personnel in the community will only exacerbate this divide among the community and create an atmosphere of tension, fear and concern for all peoples …
“The City hereby opposes and objects to any Immigration and Customs facilities or housing within the city” and will “in cooperation with legislative and municipal leaders at local, state and federal level, pursue every available legal avenue to oppose any stationing of ICE personnel and activities within the city.
“Finally, the city reaffirms its commitment to those words, so eloquently placed, at the base of Lady Liberty so far away, and yet so close.”
Lambert paused in reading the resolution, saying “I’m going to try not to cry.” And, as her voice filled with emotion, she continued:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The audience erupted with a prolonged standing ovation.
