FILE - North Plains is pictured in a 2026 file photo.
Allison Frost / OPB
Turnover continued in the small but growing city of North Plains on Monday as the City Council voted to part ways with City Manager Bill Reid and appointed a fifth different person to join the council in less than a year.
The moves come as discussions over growth and expansion of the city’s urban growth boundary have soured, turning neighbor against neighbor in a battle over the Washington County community’s future.
After meeting in a closed executive session, the council voted 5-1 Monday night to execute a separation agreement with Reid. Councilor Trista Ugarte provided the lone no vote.
The council did not provide a reason for the decision at the meeting, but Mayor Aaron Dumbrow thanked Reid for his service to the city. Dumbrow and the five other members of the council did not respond to OPB’s request for comment.
Reid commended the city’s staff for working with limited resources and expressed appreciation to the council.
“It’s always great to have a job, so thank you,” Reid said at the meeting. “It’s been a privilege to work in the city of North Plains.”
Reid told OPB that the council decided their vision and goals would be better served by a different city manager.
“The experiences and skills I have were attractive to a previous council,” he said.
Reid was hired as city manager in November 2024 after serving five years as the city’s finance director. Only one current member of the council, Ugarte, was part of the council that named Reid the city manager in 2024. Since then, a new set of councilors who ran on a platform of “smart growth” were elected to the body.
After North Plains voters turned down a proposal to expand the city’s urban growth boundary in the May 2024 election, questions of if, where and how much to grow have divided the community.
As these debates took place, the city continued to grow.
On the edges of farmland bordering the city, several new housing developments have cropped up. The city’s population grew from 3,442 in 2020 to 4,133 in 2025, according to Portland State University’s Population Research Center.
At a recent event for OPB’s Think Out Loud, several community members said the growth debate has turned ugly, with name-calling and “belittling” between the pro-growth and “smart-growth” factions.
Reid’s ouster was not the only change in city leadership on Monday. Later in the meeting, after hearing from 10 applicants, the council appointed business consultant Jason Ruston to fill the seat of councilor Katie Reding, who resigned in May.
Reding’s resignation was the council’s fourth since July, when Mayor Ariel Goodwin resigned.
