By Sean C. Morgan
Lebanon Local
Linn County has shut down Willamette Speedway this week for not complying with fire, life and safety requirements, according to County Commissioner Will Tucker.
“People need to get permits do certain things,” Tucker said. “Certain things, like fire, life and safety, we take real seriously.”
Two weeks earlier, Tucker said, the county gave the business its final notice, and on Monday, June 12, the county removed Willamette Speedway’s power panel.
The fire marshal and county building official have issued warnings in the past, Tucker said, and the property has not complied with the requirements.
Willamette Speedway operators can still complete the repairs they need to do and reopen, Tucker said. The list of issues is “dynamic,” he said.
The people who are in the process of possibly buying the property have been making changes, Tucker said, and they’ve pulled out some things.
He said the county hasn’t heard from the property owner, Jerry Schram, or the lessees, Dan Dieble and Michael Short, since closing the property.
“Issues occur all the time at businesses,” Tucker said. “We try to work with people toward these things, (making) them as easy as possible to do.”
People may not think they need a permit to put an ocean container on their property, he said, but when it’s a business where people will go inside, they do.
Willamette Speedway is always upgrading the property, Tucker said. “Sometimes, we ask them to get permits they haven’t done.”
When things don’t meet requirements, the county asks the business to meet the requirement, he said. In the past, the speedway added brackets for seating that were fabricated locally.
That’s fine, Tucker said, but the county needs an engineer to sign off on them to say they’re safe for seating at a raceway. The business took the brackets to a local engineer, who signed off on them, and the brackets met county requirements.
Willamette Speedway typically has a variety of issues, Tucker said. “This year, they took a little longer than usual (to address them).”
It’s sad when the three commissioners have to respond and pull the power, Tucker said. “We hate to do it in their season.”
The business has addressed some of the issues this year, Tucker said. The children’s arcade inside an ocean container had been pulled off the property, for example.
The issue with the 50-foot container was that it had just one entrance and no “back door” to serve as a fire exit.
But Monday when county officials were out there, other things still weren’t done, Tucker said.
“The list (of issues) is not valid because things are dynamic and changing,” he said. At this point, the county doesn’t know if some equipment will come back to the property or what the owner will do with the property, leaving him “at a little bit of a loss” to say what the remaining issues are.
If there isn’t a grill, he said, then the absence of fire suppression equipment doesn’t matter, for example, Tucker said.
The next step is for the owner to contact the county and work out a plan for compliance, Tucker said.
Lebanon Local contacted Short, who said he and Dieble had been leasing the speedway for “some months.” He did not comment and referred the newspaper to Schram.
Lebanon Local was unable to contact Schram by press time.