Two city councilors call nearly half-million-dollar for park additions at Sunset Meadows too highBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, March 22, 2024
Nearly $460,000 to build a nature play area at Sunset Meadows Park was approved at the last Independence City Council meeting — but two councilors who questioned the process voted against it, calling the amount excessive.
“Oh my gosh, a half million dollars for this park?” said Councilor Sarah Jobe. She was joined by Councilor Dawn Roden, who urged the council to consider the deficit that the city is facing and the fact that the sum needed comes from a single bid. “I cannot believe we would bring this to the council with one bid,” Roden said. Both Roden and Jobe called for more bids.
A question about the bidding process by the city, in which the bid advertisement was found by Trammart News to include a requirement for interested parties to register with an outside agency prior to submission, went unanswered by the city’s communications coordinator, Emmanuel Goicochea, despite several attempts to obtain an explanation.
The nature-play area at Sunset Meadows Park, which was designed in part years ago, includes wood logs with netting, park benches, a slide and a swing set. The nature-play addition also requires drainage and other infrastructure, according to the plans.
Other cities seeking park improvements and similar infrastructure in the same period didn’t include this same pre-registration step with a separate company, according to several ads for bids that were published during the same period in the Journal of Commerce, where the city’s ad appeared.
Councilor Kate Schwarzler pointed out that the money for the Sunset Meadows Park infrastructure comes from a specifically designated fund for parks that is funded by system development charges from builders. Those funds are available and “dedicated to the SDC process,” she explained.
However, the amount of SDC money in the current budget shows the fund to be $434,735 — a sum more than $20,000 below the bid. The fund was confirmed as the one being utilized by Independence Public Works Director Gerald Fisher at a recent Parks and Recreation Board meeting.
Sunset Meadows Park also is the recipient of $75,000 from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, and has received a private donation of $50,000 for the upgrades, as well, Fisher said. Pacific Power has donated $3,500 for the installation of trees.
In a vote in which Roden and Jobe dissented, the construction contract was awarded to GT Landscape Solutions in the amount of $457,112.20.
Though the Sunset Meadows Park nature-play addition was repeatedly referenced by Fisher, a city councilor and other city staff as being warranted in the City Parks Master Plan, no listing of this project as a priority could be found in the Independence Parks and Open Space Master Plan by Trammart News, and continued inquiries will be made. ▪
The new chair of the Historic Preservation Commission is a familiar face – and a voice for changeBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, March 22, 2024
Jennifer Flores, the new chair of the Independence Historic Preservation Commission, became intrigued by the city’s historic preservation process from what arguably was a near-death experience associated with it.
Nearly a decade ago, she had identified a big tree in her yard as old and hazardous – but she got no traction with city staff over that declaration. The tall tree was seen as a historic asset.
“What caused me to join the Historic Preservation Committee was a 100-foot Bigleaf Maple,” she recalled, explaining that it was “a beautiful but very sick ‘historic’ tree.”
Then, one day, a crashing thud proved her assessment wholly accurate. The maple “took out my neighbor’s truck and almost me,” she said. “Eight years later, I'm still here.” Last week, with the departure of the chair, Curtis Tidmore, she was elected to replace him.
Flores has never been just a mere presence on the HPC, the acronym for the board to which she was appointed. She has made her opinions known almost since the day she accepted the seat.
She called the apartment-townhome complex by the Willamette River, Independence Landing, a place that looks like a bunch of boxes. She decried the fact that a natural brick color, like the one previously on the exterior at Umpqua Bank downtown, would be painted over in light tones of whitish beige.
However, her most ardent pursuit of preservation has been in the service of trying to make people more aware of it in the historic district, which encompasses most of downtown, with a few notable exceptions. (One is the plan for what several have dubbed “the container house,” a lot that won approval for a design that looks like modern housing in Iceland, according to critics.)
Flores has been pushing for changes to better spread information, including the insertion of a line at the bottom of the utility billing that’s given to new homeowners or residents of Independence that would, essentially, state “if you own, rent, or otherwise live in a historic home and want to make external changes, please contact” the appropriate city staff member.
There are so many aspects to owning a historic home that individuals who live in them need to know, she pointed out.
She also has been calling for short videos with similar information to be placed on social media.
“We have some younger homeowners who aren't of the ‘paper generation,’” she explained.
Her first meeting as chair was no exception. She had an idea to make the city website easier to use for homeowners in the historic district. Finding information at one click rather than navigating different categories to find information would be beneficial, she said, suggesting “a single button on the home screen that says, ‘Here is all you need to know.’” ▪
The problem of succession on farms rears its head again in recent meetings and the state legislatureBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, March 22, 2024
Who can save the family farm? Someone needs to – total farmland is down 4% and farms have decreased 5.5% in Oregon. “We are going to be looking for first-generation farmers,” said Lisa Charpilloz Hanson, the newly appointed director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, who was named to the post in 2023.
“We need to encourage our young people to explore agriculture,” stressed Hanson, who was deputy director of ODA for more than 15 years before taking the helm of the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board about two years ago.
A newly released Agriculture Census by the USDA, which was completed in 2022 and is conducted every five years, shows a steady dip in the percentage of farms, farmers and farmland in the Pacific Northwest – findings that are troubling, Hanson told attendees at the annual SEDCOR Ag Breakfast recently, which was held at Mid-Willamette Valley venues in both Polk and Marion counties. The situation is serious, she said. But there are some countermeasures. Organizations like “Friends of the Family Farmers,” which is active across the state, offer engagement programs that enable work and study with participating farmers and ranchers.
The same topic dominated meetups that ranged from one at the Rickreall Grange, which showed a film documenting the history of land-use protection in Oregon and the fight for those laws, to the annual conference of the Nut Growers Society in Salem, where an entire session was devoted to succession.
At the Rickreall gathering, State Rep. Anna Scharf observed that one of her children told her flatly that farm life wasn’t going to be a professional fit in adulthood. She said she’s not certain about who will take over their family farm when that day arrives. Scharf, who represents the 23rd House District, which includes portions of Polk County, quipped: “Maybe I should have had more children.”
A staunch advocate of farmland retention and protection, Scharf also is worried about other farmers who are struggling with the same succession issues. Some offspring don't want a 365-day, no time-off job that involves stressors that may include constant decision-making amid periods of intense labor, she added.
The succession issue, along with other farmland-related matters, seemed to surface more intensively recently – perhaps due to the short session of the Oregon lawmakers. Two significant pieces of legislation came into wide focus over the past few weeks.
House Bill 4026 passed the House and Senate with an impressive bipartisan vote, prohibits land-use changes to be put on a referendum ballot. Senate Bill 1537, which is supported by Gov. Tina Kotek, would put millions toward solving the state’s housing shortages and homelessness – a broad measure that’s causing debate because it allegedly enables some avoidance of Oregon’s stringent land-use laws. ▪
Trammart News Service, March 22, 2024
Nearly $460,000 to build a nature play area at Sunset Meadows Park was approved at the last Independence City Council meeting — but two councilors who questioned the process voted against it, calling the amount excessive.
“Oh my gosh, a half million dollars for this park?” said Councilor Sarah Jobe. She was joined by Councilor Dawn Roden, who urged the council to consider the deficit that the city is facing and the fact that the sum needed comes from a single bid. “I cannot believe we would bring this to the council with one bid,” Roden said. Both Roden and Jobe called for more bids.
A question about the bidding process by the city, in which the bid advertisement was found by Trammart News to include a requirement for interested parties to register with an outside agency prior to submission, went unanswered by the city’s communications coordinator, Emmanuel Goicochea, despite several attempts to obtain an explanation.
The nature-play area at Sunset Meadows Park, which was designed in part years ago, includes wood logs with netting, park benches, a slide and a swing set. The nature-play addition also requires drainage and other infrastructure, according to the plans.
Other cities seeking park improvements and similar infrastructure in the same period didn’t include this same pre-registration step with a separate company, according to several ads for bids that were published during the same period in the Journal of Commerce, where the city’s ad appeared.
Councilor Kate Schwarzler pointed out that the money for the Sunset Meadows Park infrastructure comes from a specifically designated fund for parks that is funded by system development charges from builders. Those funds are available and “dedicated to the SDC process,” she explained.
However, the amount of SDC money in the current budget shows the fund to be $434,735 — a sum more than $20,000 below the bid. The fund was confirmed as the one being utilized by Independence Public Works Director Gerald Fisher at a recent Parks and Recreation Board meeting.
Sunset Meadows Park also is the recipient of $75,000 from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, and has received a private donation of $50,000 for the upgrades, as well, Fisher said. Pacific Power has donated $3,500 for the installation of trees.
In a vote in which Roden and Jobe dissented, the construction contract was awarded to GT Landscape Solutions in the amount of $457,112.20.
Though the Sunset Meadows Park nature-play addition was repeatedly referenced by Fisher, a city councilor and other city staff as being warranted in the City Parks Master Plan, no listing of this project as a priority could be found in the Independence Parks and Open Space Master Plan by Trammart News, and continued inquiries will be made. ▪
The new chair of the Historic Preservation Commission is a familiar face – and a voice for changeBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, March 22, 2024
Jennifer Flores, the new chair of the Independence Historic Preservation Commission, became intrigued by the city’s historic preservation process from what arguably was a near-death experience associated with it.
Nearly a decade ago, she had identified a big tree in her yard as old and hazardous – but she got no traction with city staff over that declaration. The tall tree was seen as a historic asset.
“What caused me to join the Historic Preservation Committee was a 100-foot Bigleaf Maple,” she recalled, explaining that it was “a beautiful but very sick ‘historic’ tree.”
Then, one day, a crashing thud proved her assessment wholly accurate. The maple “took out my neighbor’s truck and almost me,” she said. “Eight years later, I'm still here.” Last week, with the departure of the chair, Curtis Tidmore, she was elected to replace him.
Flores has never been just a mere presence on the HPC, the acronym for the board to which she was appointed. She has made her opinions known almost since the day she accepted the seat.
She called the apartment-townhome complex by the Willamette River, Independence Landing, a place that looks like a bunch of boxes. She decried the fact that a natural brick color, like the one previously on the exterior at Umpqua Bank downtown, would be painted over in light tones of whitish beige.
However, her most ardent pursuit of preservation has been in the service of trying to make people more aware of it in the historic district, which encompasses most of downtown, with a few notable exceptions. (One is the plan for what several have dubbed “the container house,” a lot that won approval for a design that looks like modern housing in Iceland, according to critics.)
Flores has been pushing for changes to better spread information, including the insertion of a line at the bottom of the utility billing that’s given to new homeowners or residents of Independence that would, essentially, state “if you own, rent, or otherwise live in a historic home and want to make external changes, please contact” the appropriate city staff member.
There are so many aspects to owning a historic home that individuals who live in them need to know, she pointed out.
She also has been calling for short videos with similar information to be placed on social media.
“We have some younger homeowners who aren't of the ‘paper generation,’” she explained.
Her first meeting as chair was no exception. She had an idea to make the city website easier to use for homeowners in the historic district. Finding information at one click rather than navigating different categories to find information would be beneficial, she said, suggesting “a single button on the home screen that says, ‘Here is all you need to know.’” ▪
The problem of succession on farms rears its head again in recent meetings and the state legislatureBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, March 22, 2024
Who can save the family farm? Someone needs to – total farmland is down 4% and farms have decreased 5.5% in Oregon. “We are going to be looking for first-generation farmers,” said Lisa Charpilloz Hanson, the newly appointed director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, who was named to the post in 2023.
“We need to encourage our young people to explore agriculture,” stressed Hanson, who was deputy director of ODA for more than 15 years before taking the helm of the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board about two years ago.
A newly released Agriculture Census by the USDA, which was completed in 2022 and is conducted every five years, shows a steady dip in the percentage of farms, farmers and farmland in the Pacific Northwest – findings that are troubling, Hanson told attendees at the annual SEDCOR Ag Breakfast recently, which was held at Mid-Willamette Valley venues in both Polk and Marion counties. The situation is serious, she said. But there are some countermeasures. Organizations like “Friends of the Family Farmers,” which is active across the state, offer engagement programs that enable work and study with participating farmers and ranchers.
The same topic dominated meetups that ranged from one at the Rickreall Grange, which showed a film documenting the history of land-use protection in Oregon and the fight for those laws, to the annual conference of the Nut Growers Society in Salem, where an entire session was devoted to succession.
At the Rickreall gathering, State Rep. Anna Scharf observed that one of her children told her flatly that farm life wasn’t going to be a professional fit in adulthood. She said she’s not certain about who will take over their family farm when that day arrives. Scharf, who represents the 23rd House District, which includes portions of Polk County, quipped: “Maybe I should have had more children.”
A staunch advocate of farmland retention and protection, Scharf also is worried about other farmers who are struggling with the same succession issues. Some offspring don't want a 365-day, no time-off job that involves stressors that may include constant decision-making amid periods of intense labor, she added.
The succession issue, along with other farmland-related matters, seemed to surface more intensively recently – perhaps due to the short session of the Oregon lawmakers. Two significant pieces of legislation came into wide focus over the past few weeks.
House Bill 4026 passed the House and Senate with an impressive bipartisan vote, prohibits land-use changes to be put on a referendum ballot. Senate Bill 1537, which is supported by Gov. Tina Kotek, would put millions toward solving the state’s housing shortages and homelessness – a broad measure that’s causing debate because it allegedly enables some avoidance of Oregon’s stringent land-use laws. ▪
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