City Parking Study Shows Low Survey Results So Far But Residents Weigh In
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, Nov. 17, 2023
A city plan to identify parking needs in and around downtown has drawn a disappointing response rate so far to the survey but the study has a few preliminary conclusions, according to results presented at an open house Tuesday.
The precise number of those who participated in the survey was unavailable, according to consultants with the company that performed it, Portland-based Toole Design. A report with final numbers should be available online in the coming weeks, said Kerry Aszklar, the urban planner on the project.
At a planning commission meeting in September, City Planning Manager Fred Evander described the number of surveys the city received at that time – about 160 – as lower than expected, and fewer than city staff had hoped. “Our goal was higher than that, of course,” he told the planning commission. “We have done a lot of things to boost that number and it has not gone up.”
Inquiries to the city’s communications coordinator, Emmanuel Goicochea, for an update on the number of participants to the survey went unanswered after the open house on the issue.
Despite a video to encourage survey participation, targeted social media and flyers distributed at various locations, “at some point you have got to respect people’s prerogative not to participate,” Evander said. The response number by Evander is the one to use until the final report is posted, said Gwen Eckelman, an engineer with Toole Design who attended the open house.
Evander noted that the survey contains “good information,” and it was detailed and “beefy.” Among the results so far, the survey shows that most trips downtown are by car, and only 19% of those who answered the survey say they have a “hard or very hard” time locating a parking spot, with nearly 48% identifying it as a “mixed bag” and about a third reporting an “easy or very easy” time finding a place to park. Several residents weighed in on the issue, with one suggesting that short-term parking by Ovenbird Bakery and Coffee Brew and Taphouse is one good option, so that fast carry-out pickups could be made.
Other ideas included issuing parking passes for those who live in downtown apartments so that they could post them on dashboards as indicators of residency. Several who use downtown say there aren’t enough delegated spots for apartment dwellers, forcing many to use street parking. The parking study was undertaken after merchants reported that there was a shortage of parking downtown during some times of day, which seemed to affect customers. ▪
When is an apology is greater than the sum of its parts? When the school board chair issues one.
An Editorial By Anne Scheck, reporter and publisher of Trammart News, Nov. 17, 2023
I remember the black-and-white television set, and I remember adults – mostly men – hovering around it. That's all I recall of this event, other than the hushed silence broken by a comment delivered with stunning surprise, perhaps shock. “The President took responsibility for the Bay of Pigs,” came the words in the deep baritone of our neighbor, as heads around the room nodded.
I was only seven years old at the time, and immediately pictured the “bay of pigs” as a hog farm in my home state of Kansas. I knew who the president was. He went by the initials JFK, and no grown-up I knew -- except for a Catholic couple up the street -- had voted for him. Yet here were all these tall people, awestruck with approval, issuing praise.
Their response froze the moment in my memory. Later, when friends apologized to me, I always took note of their words. Though well-intentioned and sincere, and very much appreciated by me, many folks give lackluster apologies compared with our 35th president, if they give them at all.
They’re sorry, of course, but they’re under stress. They have a sick family member and home life has been hard or a terrible boss has made the job miserable, and they are just a wreck, you see.
I’ve heard very little self-blame, which is hard for me, too. I always want to explain why I did what I did, while skipping mention of what a total bonehead thing it was to do. Which brings me to a recent and revealing pronouncement by CSD 13J’s School Board Chair, Donn Wahl. An action taken by CSD 13J, in his view, required no excuse-deflecting monologue. He said he was sorry.
“This was a sound financial decision that was poorly communicated and poorly implemented, and we’ll take ownership for that,” he said. In the future such financial decisions will be “reviewed more closely and communicated more widely,” Wahl added. When Central School District 13J approved a plan to pay ahead on its bond debt this past summer, there was a miscalculation on the burden to local property taxpayers.
Some saw their tax bill climb several hundred dollars. CSD Superintendent Jennifer Kubista apologized, too. But she gets paid in six figures and attributed it to a math mistake, which may be entirely understandable to anyone like me who struggled with college algebra but wasn’t perceived as etiologically sound to some.
Wahl, a volunteer on a board that gets more headaches than deep-sea divers, did several things in his apology that stand out: he confessed it was poorly communicated, which pretty much everyone who collared me about this issue had said; he identified it as poorly implemented, which I’d seen by the deer-in-the-headlights reaction of several people on fixed incomes.
And then Wahl promised to do better, with news on such moves “communicated more widely.”
That should be good for everyone. All the public communications coordinators in the Monmouth-Independence area are paid with tax dollars, from the cities to the schools. There are no better recipients of fact-based announcements, in my view, than the people who pay those taxes. I would run out of fingers fairly quickly trying to count the times in Independence that citizens have complained they get public relations videos instead of up-to-date information. Yet there is a hunger for such material or else I’d get a lot more doors slammed in my face delivering The Independent.
CSD 13J Board Chair Donn Wahl did something remarkable, and in a routine way, which bestowed it with even more glow. He admitted errors were made in the execution of a sound financial plan, and he pledged to improve the messaging the next time around. He wasn’t defensive. He didn’t talk about the hard job of board volunteerism or the ingratitude of some critics or the fact that he is only a guy who placed in trust in others’ expertise and got burned by it. When small town life delivers heroes, they often arrive this way, I think. There is no ceremony of recognition. Nobody stands and applauds.
If you are lucky, and do the right thing, you are often the only one you think may be aware of that. But if Board Chair Wahl presumes that no one fully noticed a few sentences in which he expressed regret and remorse, he is wrong.
I want to take this opportunity to say thank you. I was privy to it all, from my seat at the back of the room. We should all be saying thank you, too. It is a rare event when an unvarnished apology comes our way. ▪
A story to get your goat: How a plush toy from the local museum sparked a hunt for accurate animal
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, Nov. 17, 2023
Our story begins not on a dark and stormy night, but a sunny, rain-free afternoon.
The Independence Library had publicized an animal sleepover, where kids brought in their favorite teddy bears or dinosaurs or bunny rabbits or other companion toys to spend the night among the stacks of books. A clever idea -- and such a nice one for children, right?
So, Trammart News brought a plush toy in, as well. It was a goat purchased at the Independence Heritage Museum, which is a fairly frequent shopping stop for the news outlet’s owner.
Details of what happened next are blurry. One of the children in the library at the time apparently questioned the accuracy of the goat’s identification on the sales tag. Recall of the moment is imprecise because Trammart News, which is run by a rather inquisitive type, spent a fair amount of time engaged in conversation with the children’s librarian, Miss Jo. It wasn’t until months later, on the heels of some local 4H events, that it seemed time to research the precise breed of the museum goat.
As the young and observant library patron pointed out, there may be a reason to question that ID tag on it. For one thing, the continent of Africa is misspelled, at least by American grammatical standards. For another, the goat’s origin is described as Cameroon, a place of Nubian goats, Nigerian dwarf goats and pygmy goats. The museum goat's tag reads “Patrick, the Pygmy Goat.”
However, male pygmy goats have beards, and Patrick looks pretty clean-shaven, so to speak. What to do? Solution: Consult some Polk County goat experts. A trip to the Oregon State University Extension Office in nearby Dallas turned up some information. Patrick looks like a Toggenburg goat, an alpine breed that's a favorite among the Swiss. They're sturdy, with ears and legs like Patrick's -- and similar markings, too, said Hayley White, agricultural program coordinator for Polk and Marion Counties. Also, some Polk County goat farmers weighed in.
The consensus appeared to be that the toy goat represents a possible mix of good goat genes. "Looks like a pretty generic goat, could be Nigerian dwarf by the coloring and erect ears. But I'm sure it could just be a mixed goat as well," noted Holly Morag of Groovy Goats Farm. “He does resemble a Nigerian,” agreed Erik Frizelle, whose wife, Tracey, has a goat that looks like a sibling of Patrick’s. The difference is that a Nigerian Dwarf goat resembles a small dairy goat, while a Pygmy goat is one with a broader build, which Patrick seems to possess, according to the Frizelles.
In fact, some “Cameroon Goats,” as they are sometimes called, are known to be a hardy combination of the best DNA. Along Main Street, in downtown Independence, there was wide agreement that Patrick didn’t fit any stereotype -- except one known to buyers of cuddlesome toys everywhere, as “really cute.”
“This is obviously a Billy goat,” pronounced Madeline Blasko, apparently alluding to Patrick’s horns. Also, by scratching under Patrick’s jaw, a slightly hairy stubble appears. Could it be the trademark beard of a pygmy goat?
No kidding around; a tiny beard does seem to be there, and that’s the rub of good journalism -- taking things on the chin! (All puns in this last sentence are totally intentional.) ▪
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, Nov. 17, 2023
A city plan to identify parking needs in and around downtown has drawn a disappointing response rate so far to the survey but the study has a few preliminary conclusions, according to results presented at an open house Tuesday.
The precise number of those who participated in the survey was unavailable, according to consultants with the company that performed it, Portland-based Toole Design. A report with final numbers should be available online in the coming weeks, said Kerry Aszklar, the urban planner on the project.
At a planning commission meeting in September, City Planning Manager Fred Evander described the number of surveys the city received at that time – about 160 – as lower than expected, and fewer than city staff had hoped. “Our goal was higher than that, of course,” he told the planning commission. “We have done a lot of things to boost that number and it has not gone up.”
Inquiries to the city’s communications coordinator, Emmanuel Goicochea, for an update on the number of participants to the survey went unanswered after the open house on the issue.
Despite a video to encourage survey participation, targeted social media and flyers distributed at various locations, “at some point you have got to respect people’s prerogative not to participate,” Evander said. The response number by Evander is the one to use until the final report is posted, said Gwen Eckelman, an engineer with Toole Design who attended the open house.
Evander noted that the survey contains “good information,” and it was detailed and “beefy.” Among the results so far, the survey shows that most trips downtown are by car, and only 19% of those who answered the survey say they have a “hard or very hard” time locating a parking spot, with nearly 48% identifying it as a “mixed bag” and about a third reporting an “easy or very easy” time finding a place to park. Several residents weighed in on the issue, with one suggesting that short-term parking by Ovenbird Bakery and Coffee Brew and Taphouse is one good option, so that fast carry-out pickups could be made.
Other ideas included issuing parking passes for those who live in downtown apartments so that they could post them on dashboards as indicators of residency. Several who use downtown say there aren’t enough delegated spots for apartment dwellers, forcing many to use street parking. The parking study was undertaken after merchants reported that there was a shortage of parking downtown during some times of day, which seemed to affect customers. ▪
When is an apology is greater than the sum of its parts? When the school board chair issues one.
An Editorial By Anne Scheck, reporter and publisher of Trammart News, Nov. 17, 2023
I remember the black-and-white television set, and I remember adults – mostly men – hovering around it. That's all I recall of this event, other than the hushed silence broken by a comment delivered with stunning surprise, perhaps shock. “The President took responsibility for the Bay of Pigs,” came the words in the deep baritone of our neighbor, as heads around the room nodded.
I was only seven years old at the time, and immediately pictured the “bay of pigs” as a hog farm in my home state of Kansas. I knew who the president was. He went by the initials JFK, and no grown-up I knew -- except for a Catholic couple up the street -- had voted for him. Yet here were all these tall people, awestruck with approval, issuing praise.
Their response froze the moment in my memory. Later, when friends apologized to me, I always took note of their words. Though well-intentioned and sincere, and very much appreciated by me, many folks give lackluster apologies compared with our 35th president, if they give them at all.
They’re sorry, of course, but they’re under stress. They have a sick family member and home life has been hard or a terrible boss has made the job miserable, and they are just a wreck, you see.
I’ve heard very little self-blame, which is hard for me, too. I always want to explain why I did what I did, while skipping mention of what a total bonehead thing it was to do. Which brings me to a recent and revealing pronouncement by CSD 13J’s School Board Chair, Donn Wahl. An action taken by CSD 13J, in his view, required no excuse-deflecting monologue. He said he was sorry.
“This was a sound financial decision that was poorly communicated and poorly implemented, and we’ll take ownership for that,” he said. In the future such financial decisions will be “reviewed more closely and communicated more widely,” Wahl added. When Central School District 13J approved a plan to pay ahead on its bond debt this past summer, there was a miscalculation on the burden to local property taxpayers.
Some saw their tax bill climb several hundred dollars. CSD Superintendent Jennifer Kubista apologized, too. But she gets paid in six figures and attributed it to a math mistake, which may be entirely understandable to anyone like me who struggled with college algebra but wasn’t perceived as etiologically sound to some.
Wahl, a volunteer on a board that gets more headaches than deep-sea divers, did several things in his apology that stand out: he confessed it was poorly communicated, which pretty much everyone who collared me about this issue had said; he identified it as poorly implemented, which I’d seen by the deer-in-the-headlights reaction of several people on fixed incomes.
And then Wahl promised to do better, with news on such moves “communicated more widely.”
That should be good for everyone. All the public communications coordinators in the Monmouth-Independence area are paid with tax dollars, from the cities to the schools. There are no better recipients of fact-based announcements, in my view, than the people who pay those taxes. I would run out of fingers fairly quickly trying to count the times in Independence that citizens have complained they get public relations videos instead of up-to-date information. Yet there is a hunger for such material or else I’d get a lot more doors slammed in my face delivering The Independent.
CSD 13J Board Chair Donn Wahl did something remarkable, and in a routine way, which bestowed it with even more glow. He admitted errors were made in the execution of a sound financial plan, and he pledged to improve the messaging the next time around. He wasn’t defensive. He didn’t talk about the hard job of board volunteerism or the ingratitude of some critics or the fact that he is only a guy who placed in trust in others’ expertise and got burned by it. When small town life delivers heroes, they often arrive this way, I think. There is no ceremony of recognition. Nobody stands and applauds.
If you are lucky, and do the right thing, you are often the only one you think may be aware of that. But if Board Chair Wahl presumes that no one fully noticed a few sentences in which he expressed regret and remorse, he is wrong.
I want to take this opportunity to say thank you. I was privy to it all, from my seat at the back of the room. We should all be saying thank you, too. It is a rare event when an unvarnished apology comes our way. ▪
A story to get your goat: How a plush toy from the local museum sparked a hunt for accurate animal
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, Nov. 17, 2023
Our story begins not on a dark and stormy night, but a sunny, rain-free afternoon.
The Independence Library had publicized an animal sleepover, where kids brought in their favorite teddy bears or dinosaurs or bunny rabbits or other companion toys to spend the night among the stacks of books. A clever idea -- and such a nice one for children, right?
So, Trammart News brought a plush toy in, as well. It was a goat purchased at the Independence Heritage Museum, which is a fairly frequent shopping stop for the news outlet’s owner.
Details of what happened next are blurry. One of the children in the library at the time apparently questioned the accuracy of the goat’s identification on the sales tag. Recall of the moment is imprecise because Trammart News, which is run by a rather inquisitive type, spent a fair amount of time engaged in conversation with the children’s librarian, Miss Jo. It wasn’t until months later, on the heels of some local 4H events, that it seemed time to research the precise breed of the museum goat.
As the young and observant library patron pointed out, there may be a reason to question that ID tag on it. For one thing, the continent of Africa is misspelled, at least by American grammatical standards. For another, the goat’s origin is described as Cameroon, a place of Nubian goats, Nigerian dwarf goats and pygmy goats. The museum goat's tag reads “Patrick, the Pygmy Goat.”
However, male pygmy goats have beards, and Patrick looks pretty clean-shaven, so to speak. What to do? Solution: Consult some Polk County goat experts. A trip to the Oregon State University Extension Office in nearby Dallas turned up some information. Patrick looks like a Toggenburg goat, an alpine breed that's a favorite among the Swiss. They're sturdy, with ears and legs like Patrick's -- and similar markings, too, said Hayley White, agricultural program coordinator for Polk and Marion Counties. Also, some Polk County goat farmers weighed in.
The consensus appeared to be that the toy goat represents a possible mix of good goat genes. "Looks like a pretty generic goat, could be Nigerian dwarf by the coloring and erect ears. But I'm sure it could just be a mixed goat as well," noted Holly Morag of Groovy Goats Farm. “He does resemble a Nigerian,” agreed Erik Frizelle, whose wife, Tracey, has a goat that looks like a sibling of Patrick’s. The difference is that a Nigerian Dwarf goat resembles a small dairy goat, while a Pygmy goat is one with a broader build, which Patrick seems to possess, according to the Frizelles.
In fact, some “Cameroon Goats,” as they are sometimes called, are known to be a hardy combination of the best DNA. Along Main Street, in downtown Independence, there was wide agreement that Patrick didn’t fit any stereotype -- except one known to buyers of cuddlesome toys everywhere, as “really cute.”
“This is obviously a Billy goat,” pronounced Madeline Blasko, apparently alluding to Patrick’s horns. Also, by scratching under Patrick’s jaw, a slightly hairy stubble appears. Could it be the trademark beard of a pygmy goat?
No kidding around; a tiny beard does seem to be there, and that’s the rub of good journalism -- taking things on the chin! (All puns in this last sentence are totally intentional.) ▪
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