Oregon’s most reluctant city is back -- despite years of desperately trying to disband.

The Oregon Court of Appeals released an opinion Wednesday three years after Damascus disincorporated to say that no, it actually hasn’t.

The court found that a state law crafted specifically to let the Clackamas County city put itself out of its misery didn’t do that at all.

While Damascas apparently never legally ceased to exist, practically speaking, it did, jettisoning its city employees, turning over its assets to the county and letting City Council terms expire.

Now the tiny patch of rolling farmland will have to build itself back into a city from the ground up at the order of the court – likely the first time in the state’s history this has happened.

Which leaves the once-again-a-city, the county and the state with more questions than answers.

This isn’t only unprecedented -- this is Damascus. The complicated matter of restarting a city is nearly impossible to imagine because of the history of the city.

Here goes.

***

Damascus incorporated in 2004 to take control of its borders and protect the rural town’s character from encroachment by Sandy and Gresham. Damascus, with about 10,500 people, prides itself on its open spaces and small-town feel. The area was settled around a post office and once-prominent Oregon Route 212, growing steadily and quietly until residents chose to become only the second city in Oregon in the past 34 years to form.

The idea quickly went off the rails.

A surge of early-days Tea Party money boosted a slate of local politicians who pushed for general elections any time the City Council wanted to increase spending or taxes. So, each budget cycle was fraught with questions of how to use the taxes the city was collecting -- eventually meaning the city largely didn’t spend money.

At one point, officials genuinely discussed whether city employees could use the copy machine without a public vote.

Every Oregon city must pass a comprehensive plan before it can take on zoning, economic development and capital projects to become a true city. The plan usually is adopted by a city governing body after public hearings.

But in 2012, Damascus officials and voters became the first city in the state to require a public vote to approve its comprehensive plan -- and rejected six in four years.

The last attempt failed by 75 percent of the vote.

Without a plan, the city was essentially a taxing district with no way to spend the money.

Residents became increasingly frustrated by deteriorating roads and poor city services. They couldn’t develop their land or businesses.

These problems were only heightened by the tenor of debate. Government and community meetings were ugly with name-calling, hot tempers and threats.

City managers and attorneys were hired and fired -- sometimes within months of each other.

***

State lawmakers tried to allow Damascus residents to leave the city and join Happy Valley or Gresham without the approval of the City Council, only to be struck down by the Court of Appeals.

Finally, a slate of pro-disincorporation officials were elected to the City Council and began to approve the departures.

They also continued to eye a final end to Damascus.

Shemia Fagan, a Democrat who was then in the Oregon House but is now a senator, crafted House Bill 3085 that she thought circumvented Oregon’s statutory rules that dictate disincorporation.

Damascus voters had tried in 2013 to disincorporate using Oregon’s standard method. The state requires that a majority of all voters approve disincorporation -- a high bar for a state that typically tops out at 80 percent of people registered to vote actually casting ballots.

This vote came within spitting distance of passing, though. The city needed 3,441 votes to pass and 2,947 voted in favor of disincorporation.

But residents couldn’t vote on disincorporation again for two more years, according to state law.

So Fagan created what was considered an alternative path that said a simple majority of people who voted in an election could disincorporate the city.

A Damascus city councilor, James DeYoung, tried to stop the vote but a Circuit Court judge said that the vote could go on.

When the measure showed up in 2016, Damascus voters approved it. The same judge said the new state law was valid.

***

Three years passed. The city gave up the lease on its City Hall, located in a strip mall in the middle of town. The mayor at the time of disincorporation annexed his property into Happy Valley, as did many other residents.

Happy Valley laid out a plan for annexing thousands of acres of west Damascus.

Clackamas County took over road maintenance and any other remaining duties, of which there were few. It returned the leftover tax money to Damascus taxpayers and started to collect county taxes, as it does for all unincorporated land in the county.

But DeYoung’s case still sat before the appellate court. The Oregon Department of Justice argued that the case should be considered moot since it seemed impossible to undo the disincorporation at this point.

But the judges disagreed and sided with DeYoung. The three judges said that the poorly written law did not actually provide the path out of cityhood that it was thought to so the results of the election were null and void.

DeYoung was elated. He has continued to try to rally his neighbors around the idea that a city of Damascus could succeed. He said he held a meeting just last week with about 20 people in the community to discuss a future for Damascus and how to approach increased Happy Valley annexations.

But now he’s ready to shift the conversation to how to restart the city. He expects to gather the city council members who were in office at the time of disincorporation, even though the former mayor’s home is now part of Happy Valley.

“A new day is dawning and Damascus can get back down the road to becoming a real city with a comprehensive plan,” DeYoung said.

He acknowledged there are a lot of issues to work out but said he thinks most residents are up for the challenge.

“A majority, I think, still think the city is worth saving and going forward,” DeYoung said. “Especially if we make significant changes.”

DeYoung said he had already consulted with the city’s former attorney to figure out how to do so. But no one is paying that attorney and there‘s no City Council to give him direction.

And there’s no money to pay DeYoung.

What’s more, it might be difficult to figure out how to pay anyone.

***

That’s because the disincorporation happened just a few days shy of when the city’s new fiscal year started. So the City Council in one of its last acts in office lowered the city’s tax rate to 0.

If a reconstituted council comes back into office, the members will likely be faced with that same no-tax tax rate. If they want to raise it and are still subject to all the old rules of the city, it will require a vote of the people.

Peter Watts, the former city attorney, said Damascus faces other questions no one else in the state has ever had to answer.

Those include: Could a resident of another city be in office in Damascus? Will all the annexations to the other cities still be in effect? Does the city charter just go back into effect? Does Clackamas County have to pay back the city for the tax money it was told by the city and state to refund to Damascus taxpayers? Where would that money come from?

Happy Valley also likely faces unusual questions about its ambitions to take over land in west Damascus and its new residents that jumped ship without the approval of Damascus’ not-in-session City Council.

Happy Valley’s city manager didn’t return an immediate request for comment.

Clackamas County Chairman Jim Bernard said he isn’t too worried yet about all the ramifications. He expects the state to either take the case to the Oregon Supreme Court or find a legislative fix to the debacle.

“If they’re forced to become a city, there will be a big problem,” Bernard said. “But I don’t know that anyone can tell you what it is because it’s never happened before.”

Fagan’s office, which crafted the law, didn’t return a request for comment.

And the Oregon Attorney General’s Office, which argued the case, also appears to be confused.

“We are still reviewing the decision, and do not know if we will appeal, or not,” said spokeswoman Kristina Edmundson. “The city would probably be (the) ones to ask about what happens next.”

But how?