By Anne Scheck
If you’d been at the last Independence City Council meeting of 2019, you might have wondered why the final minutes looked a bit like a college lecture. From the podium, City Manager Tom Pessemier instructed city councilors on the general points of an Urban Renewal Agency, which is what the city councilors become when the occasion calls for it.
And, that night, the occasion called for it. So, after the council closed their meeting and reopened it as the Urban Renewal Agency, Mr. Pessemier noted that the councilors were putting on one of “the multiple hats that you wear,” namely the one for urban renewal, which aims to fight blight.
“I do want to make sure you understand this is a different legal entity we are talking about – not the same legal entity as a city council,” he said. “The goals and objectives of the Urban Renewal Agency are significantly different from what you’d normally see on a day-to-day basis,” he explained.
Mr. Pessemier went on to say that the Urban Renewal Agency, which was founded in 2001, oversees a special district within the city – and the tax base for the urban renewal area was frozen when it was formed. The tax dollars that exceed the frozen base of 2001 go straight to the city for paying back debt in the urban renewal area, which encompasses the downtown area and the riverfront, along with some other sections.
So far that tax difference has yielded about $450,000 a year for the urban renewal area, according to previous figures.
However, the debt inside the district has been growing – and by law, it cannot go past a debt ceiling of about $17.9 million. In fact, the debt threatened to do just that a few years ago, so some of it was placed into the general fund by a special amendment.
When do substantial pay-offs to this urban renewal debt begin? Probably in the next few years – around 2022 – as the development of riverfront apartments and townhomes are completed, Mr. Pessemier said.
If all this sounds confusing, you can imagine what the last year may have been like for a new city manager, two first-year city councilors, a youthful city planner and a whole batch of recent appointees to city commissions and committees. As January rolls in, a look back over the challenges of the last 12 months seems appropriate.
Hope for Independence Station gets a drubbing, but now anticipation soars again. When Chuck Sides, one of the investors in Independence Station and a buyer of the former Independence City Hall, made the acquisition, spirits were high. He has been associated with Keizer Station, now considered a showcase development.
But as months rolled by, and Independence Station remained “Stonehenge” to many residents, it seemed likely to remain the skeletal fixture it has been for the past 13 years. Then two entrepreneurs, Patrick Carney and Kelly McDonald, decided they wanted to purchase both buildings – and, just before the New Year, their firm Gomacgo LLC did so, along with three other buildings on Monmouth Street.
The plan is to work with the city for the “transfer of development credits” previously approved for the old city hall, the pair’s top priority – it has a brewery. A city rebate of $300,000, which was pledged to the former developer for the site, is said to be in the works, as well as other incentives.
“We hope to begin in the next few months,” said Mr. McDonald. And what about Independence Station? Within two years, “we hope to be able to move forward on that,” he said. The first order of business for Independence Station will be to “analyze and research” the structure, then use it for a new building, if possible, he said.
Water system upgrades got underway, with DEQ’s blessing and $10 million price tag. Sewer-sanitation improvements were approved by the city council this past year, with loans and allocations to refurbish pipelines, pumping stations and discharge water on a farm field just north of the city limit.
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) had cited the city after wastewater from city lagoons was discharged into the Willamette River beyond what was allowable by state permits – a result of the lagoons going past their storage ability. To be able to use the farm field, the city needs to acquire land easements and lay the infrastructure past the last airpark street along Stryker Road, Corsair Drive. The cost for the recycling venture and other improvements is expected to reach $10 million in 2020, but it forestalls the need for a new treatment plant.
So far, the upgrades haven’t changed the monthly residential water bill, which averages about $105 for many homeowners, and includes about $6.50 that goes to pay debt on the Independence Civic Center and about $10 that goes to help pay debt on MINET, the city’s municipal
telecom company.
City annexes 70 acres, more growth expected in southwest area of the city. A large swath of land will become mixed-use housing and join Monmouth and Independence more closely south of Monmouth Street. The annexation will substantially increase the size of the city, and traffic concerns were cited as a point of contention by residents from neighboring streets.
In late December, the City of Independence announced it had secured funding for a long-sought traffic analysis – the previous one, conducted in 2007, was considered out of date. Called a “Traffic System Plan,” the document will forecast patterns and draw conclusions about how car travel around the city can be better managed in the future, with growth in population now expected to push well past the current 10,000 population.
Traffic along the “S Curve” where the outer limits of the two cities meet is expected to become much busier with the building of a new Roth’s Fresh Markets, the possible inclusion of a high-end coffee shop, a potential Taco Bell and a large agriculturally-oriented hardware store. In addition, the former Roth’s location is said to be a prospective site for a discount retail outlet, though that remains unconfirmed.
Independence Hotel opens, will likely link to city’s event rooms this year. The hotel, which was slated to open last spring, then tentatively rescheduled to open in July, had its official ribbon-cutting in September. Depending on the booking period, rooms typically run from $149 to just above $270, with a “bed tax” of roughly 10%. Special discounts currently make $99 room rates available.
Mark Keller, who runs the hotel, conducted the final feasibility study five years ago; He found evidence that the recommended number of rooms could be bumped up from 50 to 75. That means group bookings are a possibility, making conference space desirable – and the city seems on the cusp of turning over the Independence Civic Center’s basement floor, known as “The Event Center,” to the hotel for conference rooms under contracted use.
A “request for proposal” was posted by the city; the Independence Hotel responded. Terms of the anticipated deal haven’t been fully disclosed, but the contract is expected to come before the Independence City Council in early 2020.
And, that night, the occasion called for it. So, after the council closed their meeting and reopened it as the Urban Renewal Agency, Mr. Pessemier noted that the councilors were putting on one of “the multiple hats that you wear,” namely the one for urban renewal, which aims to fight blight.
“I do want to make sure you understand this is a different legal entity we are talking about – not the same legal entity as a city council,” he said. “The goals and objectives of the Urban Renewal Agency are significantly different from what you’d normally see on a day-to-day basis,” he explained.
Mr. Pessemier went on to say that the Urban Renewal Agency, which was founded in 2001, oversees a special district within the city – and the tax base for the urban renewal area was frozen when it was formed. The tax dollars that exceed the frozen base of 2001 go straight to the city for paying back debt in the urban renewal area, which encompasses the downtown area and the riverfront, along with some other sections.
So far that tax difference has yielded about $450,000 a year for the urban renewal area, according to previous figures.
However, the debt inside the district has been growing – and by law, it cannot go past a debt ceiling of about $17.9 million. In fact, the debt threatened to do just that a few years ago, so some of it was placed into the general fund by a special amendment.
When do substantial pay-offs to this urban renewal debt begin? Probably in the next few years – around 2022 – as the development of riverfront apartments and townhomes are completed, Mr. Pessemier said.
If all this sounds confusing, you can imagine what the last year may have been like for a new city manager, two first-year city councilors, a youthful city planner and a whole batch of recent appointees to city commissions and committees. As January rolls in, a look back over the challenges of the last 12 months seems appropriate.
Hope for Independence Station gets a drubbing, but now anticipation soars again. When Chuck Sides, one of the investors in Independence Station and a buyer of the former Independence City Hall, made the acquisition, spirits were high. He has been associated with Keizer Station, now considered a showcase development.
But as months rolled by, and Independence Station remained “Stonehenge” to many residents, it seemed likely to remain the skeletal fixture it has been for the past 13 years. Then two entrepreneurs, Patrick Carney and Kelly McDonald, decided they wanted to purchase both buildings – and, just before the New Year, their firm Gomacgo LLC did so, along with three other buildings on Monmouth Street.
The plan is to work with the city for the “transfer of development credits” previously approved for the old city hall, the pair’s top priority – it has a brewery. A city rebate of $300,000, which was pledged to the former developer for the site, is said to be in the works, as well as other incentives.
“We hope to begin in the next few months,” said Mr. McDonald. And what about Independence Station? Within two years, “we hope to be able to move forward on that,” he said. The first order of business for Independence Station will be to “analyze and research” the structure, then use it for a new building, if possible, he said.
Water system upgrades got underway, with DEQ’s blessing and $10 million price tag. Sewer-sanitation improvements were approved by the city council this past year, with loans and allocations to refurbish pipelines, pumping stations and discharge water on a farm field just north of the city limit.
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) had cited the city after wastewater from city lagoons was discharged into the Willamette River beyond what was allowable by state permits – a result of the lagoons going past their storage ability. To be able to use the farm field, the city needs to acquire land easements and lay the infrastructure past the last airpark street along Stryker Road, Corsair Drive. The cost for the recycling venture and other improvements is expected to reach $10 million in 2020, but it forestalls the need for a new treatment plant.
So far, the upgrades haven’t changed the monthly residential water bill, which averages about $105 for many homeowners, and includes about $6.50 that goes to pay debt on the Independence Civic Center and about $10 that goes to help pay debt on MINET, the city’s municipal
telecom company.
City annexes 70 acres, more growth expected in southwest area of the city. A large swath of land will become mixed-use housing and join Monmouth and Independence more closely south of Monmouth Street. The annexation will substantially increase the size of the city, and traffic concerns were cited as a point of contention by residents from neighboring streets.
In late December, the City of Independence announced it had secured funding for a long-sought traffic analysis – the previous one, conducted in 2007, was considered out of date. Called a “Traffic System Plan,” the document will forecast patterns and draw conclusions about how car travel around the city can be better managed in the future, with growth in population now expected to push well past the current 10,000 population.
Traffic along the “S Curve” where the outer limits of the two cities meet is expected to become much busier with the building of a new Roth’s Fresh Markets, the possible inclusion of a high-end coffee shop, a potential Taco Bell and a large agriculturally-oriented hardware store. In addition, the former Roth’s location is said to be a prospective site for a discount retail outlet, though that remains unconfirmed.
Independence Hotel opens, will likely link to city’s event rooms this year. The hotel, which was slated to open last spring, then tentatively rescheduled to open in July, had its official ribbon-cutting in September. Depending on the booking period, rooms typically run from $149 to just above $270, with a “bed tax” of roughly 10%. Special discounts currently make $99 room rates available.
Mark Keller, who runs the hotel, conducted the final feasibility study five years ago; He found evidence that the recommended number of rooms could be bumped up from 50 to 75. That means group bookings are a possibility, making conference space desirable – and the city seems on the cusp of turning over the Independence Civic Center’s basement floor, known as “The Event Center,” to the hotel for conference rooms under contracted use.
A “request for proposal” was posted by the city; the Independence Hotel responded. Terms of the anticipated deal haven’t been fully disclosed, but the contract is expected to come before the Independence City Council in early 2020.
The CIVICS LESSON: Museum Move to Downtown
Study of Festivals, A Competitive Effect
The City of Independence is borrowing $650,000 this year to buy a new downtown location for the Heritage Museum – will it suffer from what has been called “the festival toll”? In 2018, the results of a study by the City of Philadelphia documented a plummet in museum attendance before, during and after outdoor events in the city’s downtown corridor. The reason seemed to be that museum attendees and outdoor event-goers comprise two different groups. Those who like visiting museums are put off by the pedestrian and car traffic at festivals; Visitors who want music, sunshine and food carts tend to stay out of museums. The study prompted news coverage outside of Pennsylvania. In fact, a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst wrote a cautionary forecast, "Why Cities Should Stop Building Museums and Focus on Festivals." There seems to be no evidence, however, that museum usage permanently declines due to crowd-drawing festivals. In fact, the effect reported so far suggests that it is temporary.
The INDY HOP: When a Simple Ding-Dong Won’t Do
Season's greetings took on a whole new sound in December, thanks to doorbells around town. Right along with decorative lights, some residents changed their little finger-activated door-side device to play Christmas carols. In some of the newer homes past 7th street, the ding-dong bell never even existed – instead, music ranging from orchestra symphonies to a chart-topping pop tunes chime out. It's all part of a trend, if you believe online information about the rise in varieties of "front door signaling." Not only can a resident purchase a different kind of doorbell – how about a bell-toned belt-out of "Yellow Rose of Texas"? – but the new systems can alternate between songs. At one house in Independence, the national anthem plays. Asked why this would be the case, a local homeowner explains: "Because it's patriotic, that's why!" So there you have it, in consumer logic.
EDITORIAL by Anne Scheck
Hindsight in 2020: Karen and Nanette
This past December, as 2020 crept toward us all, something rather special happened to me. For those of you who know me, it wasn’t my 43rd wedding anniversary … though, yes, that’s certainly a close milestone now that the holiday season has passed. It was this: I got caught up in my very first online, social media, real-time semi-rant. For someone who still doesn’t understand all the functions on my cell phone, this was quite an event for me. There I was, holding forth, words flying, over a Facebook posting. The college student who’d helped tutor me on Facebook three years ago, so I’d know how to use it, should feel proud. But it was a pretty mild joust. It started when a community leader posted a New York Times article, “My So-Karen Life” from a recent Rites of Passage column in that newspaper. I’m for free speech!
But I didn’t like the article. I considered it incomprehensible. However, the writer – an especially talented one – apparently is far younger than I am and I have (excuse my boomerism here) some age-conferring wisdom. The author made a case for putting people in categories, like the one now called “Karen.” To Gen X and others, “Karen” supposedly is a good way to classify a certain type of woman. Apparently, a “Karen” grows up attractive and accepted, with trend-setting clothes at every level, performs well in college and achieves a comfortable, middle-class existence and a sense of entitlement throughout life – a life where her deck has been stacked for success. But, alas, these Karens condescend to just about anyone who lacks their attainment. This got me thinking about Nanette*, the former goddess of my high school, who seemed like queen of the Karens. So I popped off online about how wrong we can be to pigeonhole anyone. I pointed out I’m old and I know, darn it. Because of Nanette.
I know not just because of Nanette but also because, by now, I’ve known a few women a whole lot like her. In fact, I’d never have known Nanette to be anything but a classic Karen except that she did two things which, more or less, affected my polar-opposite life from hers as a teen. She was unfailingly kind to me and she was nuts about a boy who was a complete “Poindexter,” the name young females gave to awkward guys who were smart but charmless.
Chased by the star athletes and imitated by the cheerleaders, Nanette chose to date someone considered one of the biggest Poindexters in our adolescent orbit. Also, she got a job in the kitchen of a local hospital where I worked as a teenager, along with a few others from our school. Nanette showed such leadership skill that she was put in charge of us. And for reasons I never understood, I seemed to be one of her favorites. She was so naturally beautiful that a relatively high percentage of the male medical staff noticed her – often waiting till she took her place as a cafeteria server before they grabbed their trays to make their way down the line.
Her Poindexter boyfriend got into an engineering college near Boston, which seemed as far away as the planet Mars to me. But Nanette wanted to go to that city, too. And, since she had this classic “Karen” background, her parents could afford it. Nanette looked at colleges in Boston, and she settled on one: a small women’s college in the heart of the city. I remember girls at my high school who made a little fun of her for following a guy to Boston that none of them even would have dated. And going to an all-woman college? How fun could that be?
Raven-haired Nanette, with a smile as radiant as a movie star’s, who looked like she should be on a New York fashion runway, flew off to Boston, graduated from college, and married the Poindexter. We lost touch, of course. I was told she became what’s now being described as a “Karen,” raising a family somewhere in the Midwest or on the Eastern Seaboard or in Idaho.
When I took my own daughter hither-and-yon years ago to look at university campuses,
some of those trips were torturous for us both. One snooty college in Pennsylvania made me sorry I ever dragged my daughter away from our hotel in Philadelphia; A highly regarded college in another part of the country was so homogenous it made my daughter think of an academic island, where she simply couldn’t see herself. I was about to give up when I thought of Nanette, and, on what must have seemed a whim to my family, we flew off to Boston to visit the college Nanette had chosen, so long ago. We saw MIT from a boat on the Charles River, and I thought it must be where Poindexter went. He and Nanette were so far ahead of the traditional curve.
And I thought back to how Nanette looked during passing periods in the halls of my old high school, as if she belonged to a rare and elite group, those who win the genetic lottery in so many ways. But if she felt superior, as the New York Times writer suggests these so-called Karen-types do, it only looked that way with Nanette. She made quite unexpected decisions.
My daughter graduated several years ago from Nanette’s alma mater. It wasn’t until I erupted on the internet recently about how wrong-headed stereotyping can be – arguing against the column about the Karens – that I thought of Nanette again and decided to find her. I was going to write to her by email to tell her, “you may not remember me, but I remember you and your choices, and my daughter ended up going to same college you did, all those years ago.”
But, as it turns out, I never got to write the email. It was easy to find out about Nanette. She’d kept the name I knew her by. She died several years ago, never reaching the late middle age that proved such a prosperous period in my life; Never knowing, as I do, the comfort of finally making it to the dubious label of senior citizen without becoming a so-called Karen.
From her obituary, it sounds like she had cancer. Who knows what other curve balls life threw at her? And that’s the problem with calling privileged people a name like “Karen” – you never know what’s beyond the perfect smile and fashion sense. Sometimes it’s a self-actualizing young woman who looks like a prom princess but values her nerdy boyfriend, and who isn’t afraid to share that with a food-service co-worker 10 rungs below her on the high-school hierarchy. What a discovery for two girls on the same wavelength, neither one a Karen.
*Nanette is a derivative of her actual name
But I didn’t like the article. I considered it incomprehensible. However, the writer – an especially talented one – apparently is far younger than I am and I have (excuse my boomerism here) some age-conferring wisdom. The author made a case for putting people in categories, like the one now called “Karen.” To Gen X and others, “Karen” supposedly is a good way to classify a certain type of woman. Apparently, a “Karen” grows up attractive and accepted, with trend-setting clothes at every level, performs well in college and achieves a comfortable, middle-class existence and a sense of entitlement throughout life – a life where her deck has been stacked for success. But, alas, these Karens condescend to just about anyone who lacks their attainment. This got me thinking about Nanette*, the former goddess of my high school, who seemed like queen of the Karens. So I popped off online about how wrong we can be to pigeonhole anyone. I pointed out I’m old and I know, darn it. Because of Nanette.
I know not just because of Nanette but also because, by now, I’ve known a few women a whole lot like her. In fact, I’d never have known Nanette to be anything but a classic Karen except that she did two things which, more or less, affected my polar-opposite life from hers as a teen. She was unfailingly kind to me and she was nuts about a boy who was a complete “Poindexter,” the name young females gave to awkward guys who were smart but charmless.
Chased by the star athletes and imitated by the cheerleaders, Nanette chose to date someone considered one of the biggest Poindexters in our adolescent orbit. Also, she got a job in the kitchen of a local hospital where I worked as a teenager, along with a few others from our school. Nanette showed such leadership skill that she was put in charge of us. And for reasons I never understood, I seemed to be one of her favorites. She was so naturally beautiful that a relatively high percentage of the male medical staff noticed her – often waiting till she took her place as a cafeteria server before they grabbed their trays to make their way down the line.
Her Poindexter boyfriend got into an engineering college near Boston, which seemed as far away as the planet Mars to me. But Nanette wanted to go to that city, too. And, since she had this classic “Karen” background, her parents could afford it. Nanette looked at colleges in Boston, and she settled on one: a small women’s college in the heart of the city. I remember girls at my high school who made a little fun of her for following a guy to Boston that none of them even would have dated. And going to an all-woman college? How fun could that be?
Raven-haired Nanette, with a smile as radiant as a movie star’s, who looked like she should be on a New York fashion runway, flew off to Boston, graduated from college, and married the Poindexter. We lost touch, of course. I was told she became what’s now being described as a “Karen,” raising a family somewhere in the Midwest or on the Eastern Seaboard or in Idaho.
When I took my own daughter hither-and-yon years ago to look at university campuses,
some of those trips were torturous for us both. One snooty college in Pennsylvania made me sorry I ever dragged my daughter away from our hotel in Philadelphia; A highly regarded college in another part of the country was so homogenous it made my daughter think of an academic island, where she simply couldn’t see herself. I was about to give up when I thought of Nanette, and, on what must have seemed a whim to my family, we flew off to Boston to visit the college Nanette had chosen, so long ago. We saw MIT from a boat on the Charles River, and I thought it must be where Poindexter went. He and Nanette were so far ahead of the traditional curve.
And I thought back to how Nanette looked during passing periods in the halls of my old high school, as if she belonged to a rare and elite group, those who win the genetic lottery in so many ways. But if she felt superior, as the New York Times writer suggests these so-called Karen-types do, it only looked that way with Nanette. She made quite unexpected decisions.
My daughter graduated several years ago from Nanette’s alma mater. It wasn’t until I erupted on the internet recently about how wrong-headed stereotyping can be – arguing against the column about the Karens – that I thought of Nanette again and decided to find her. I was going to write to her by email to tell her, “you may not remember me, but I remember you and your choices, and my daughter ended up going to same college you did, all those years ago.”
But, as it turns out, I never got to write the email. It was easy to find out about Nanette. She’d kept the name I knew her by. She died several years ago, never reaching the late middle age that proved such a prosperous period in my life; Never knowing, as I do, the comfort of finally making it to the dubious label of senior citizen without becoming a so-called Karen.
From her obituary, it sounds like she had cancer. Who knows what other curve balls life threw at her? And that’s the problem with calling privileged people a name like “Karen” – you never know what’s beyond the perfect smile and fashion sense. Sometimes it’s a self-actualizing young woman who looks like a prom princess but values her nerdy boyfriend, and who isn’t afraid to share that with a food-service co-worker 10 rungs below her on the high-school hierarchy. What a discovery for two girls on the same wavelength, neither one a Karen.
*Nanette is a derivative of her actual name
AROUND TOWN
2019: Incidents & Events
For a town that’s been called off-the-beaten path by a city staffer, isn’t ranked as one of Oregon’s must-see sites on national lists, and has a crime rate so low that loose roosters make news, a whole lot happened in 2019 in Independence. And some of it was pretty significant.
In the spring, rains flooded the Willamette River – and, in turn, the city’s Riverfront Park. The scene of floating port-a-potties and underwater playground equipment drew many residents, who snapped photos and predicted new notoriety for Independence, as dogs paddled through water by the amphitheater. However, the headlines went to Corvallis, where the river “crested.”
Summer started off in a blaze – with a fire at the former Henry Hill Elementary School, which now houses Central School District 13J offices. When a modular building between those offices and the rooms of the Oregon Child Development Coalition burst into flames, Polk County Fire District No. 1 answered the call and put out the
fire within about six minutes. The area was occupied by Central Youth Sports, which was burned beyond use. There were no injuries and the building was insured, which meant restoration could get going.
About a month later, an airplane swooped down along the sparkling Willamette River, right by the city’s Riverview Park. The plane cut a power line, leading firefighters and others rushing to the site, so park-goers could be evacuated. There was speculation the plane originated from the nearby Independence State Airport. This proved untrue. The pilot was an out-of-towner.
Independence American Legion Post 33 installed a moving ritual, honoring deceased veterans, month by month, in a ceremony on the third Saturday of the month at the Heritage Museum.
"WIM," a Facebook group for women in Independence and Monmouth – established by an Indy newcomer – celebrated its first anniversary with a big, bright bash at Valkyrie downtown, bringing together a cross-cities group that leaders from the two towns had been unable to muster in past years.
The Ella Curran Food Bank had a record-breaker of a year, and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables made their way to the center as local farmers brought in shares of their crops and donors did the same from garden harvests.
Transportation changes were announced, too. A plan for a trolley to run between Monmouth and Independence got some new traction, as Rep Paul Evans clinched state funding for a feasibility study. This made some residents break out in the chant “all aboard” when news reached a downtown corner bar and coffee shop, the Brew & Tap.
Meanwhile, the Luckiamute Watershed Council (LWC) chugged along with new programs served up at the aforementioned establishment and other venues downtown. The same group from LWC that battles for healthy wetlands, fights knotweed and documents the goings-on at our local waterway, Ash Creek, also hosted expert talks to help people in Independence learn about watershed habitat. (Also, how to press cider from apples, another essential fall activity.)
As Autumn rolled in, the Ash Creek Arts Center stepped up with “Second Saturday” sessions for families with young artists, making creative use – in more ways than one – of the old library. Also, “STREAM Lab Maker Space,” a center run by the Community Services Consortium, offered activities that ranged from screen-printing to soda-bottle rockets at the Henry Hill building.
As winter threatened, ghosts got more popular last year. The traditional discovery tour for them – The Annual Ghost Walk – drew about 2,000 people, breaking all previous attendance counts.
And Winter Fest, which followed the crowd-pleasing Santa Train, was an unprecedented success – drawing huge numbers of families, even as Jack Frost snapped in.
What else happened? Quite a bit and too much to briefly list. But one big change isn’t so obvious: The Independence Police Department added a motorcycle-driving police officer, who is not easy to spot. He can lurk on side streets without being seen and when he is sighted by passing motorists, it’s often because he’s by a car window, writing a ticket.
This summary doesn't cover city services except those that touch upon public safety and includes non-profit organizations that serve the public.
For a town that’s been called off-the-beaten path by a city staffer, isn’t ranked as one of Oregon’s must-see sites on national lists, and has a crime rate so low that loose roosters make news, a whole lot happened in 2019 in Independence. And some of it was pretty significant.
In the spring, rains flooded the Willamette River – and, in turn, the city’s Riverfront Park. The scene of floating port-a-potties and underwater playground equipment drew many residents, who snapped photos and predicted new notoriety for Independence, as dogs paddled through water by the amphitheater. However, the headlines went to Corvallis, where the river “crested.”
Summer started off in a blaze – with a fire at the former Henry Hill Elementary School, which now houses Central School District 13J offices. When a modular building between those offices and the rooms of the Oregon Child Development Coalition burst into flames, Polk County Fire District No. 1 answered the call and put out the
fire within about six minutes. The area was occupied by Central Youth Sports, which was burned beyond use. There were no injuries and the building was insured, which meant restoration could get going.
About a month later, an airplane swooped down along the sparkling Willamette River, right by the city’s Riverview Park. The plane cut a power line, leading firefighters and others rushing to the site, so park-goers could be evacuated. There was speculation the plane originated from the nearby Independence State Airport. This proved untrue. The pilot was an out-of-towner.
Independence American Legion Post 33 installed a moving ritual, honoring deceased veterans, month by month, in a ceremony on the third Saturday of the month at the Heritage Museum.
"WIM," a Facebook group for women in Independence and Monmouth – established by an Indy newcomer – celebrated its first anniversary with a big, bright bash at Valkyrie downtown, bringing together a cross-cities group that leaders from the two towns had been unable to muster in past years.
The Ella Curran Food Bank had a record-breaker of a year, and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables made their way to the center as local farmers brought in shares of their crops and donors did the same from garden harvests.
Transportation changes were announced, too. A plan for a trolley to run between Monmouth and Independence got some new traction, as Rep Paul Evans clinched state funding for a feasibility study. This made some residents break out in the chant “all aboard” when news reached a downtown corner bar and coffee shop, the Brew & Tap.
Meanwhile, the Luckiamute Watershed Council (LWC) chugged along with new programs served up at the aforementioned establishment and other venues downtown. The same group from LWC that battles for healthy wetlands, fights knotweed and documents the goings-on at our local waterway, Ash Creek, also hosted expert talks to help people in Independence learn about watershed habitat. (Also, how to press cider from apples, another essential fall activity.)
As Autumn rolled in, the Ash Creek Arts Center stepped up with “Second Saturday” sessions for families with young artists, making creative use – in more ways than one – of the old library. Also, “STREAM Lab Maker Space,” a center run by the Community Services Consortium, offered activities that ranged from screen-printing to soda-bottle rockets at the Henry Hill building.
As winter threatened, ghosts got more popular last year. The traditional discovery tour for them – The Annual Ghost Walk – drew about 2,000 people, breaking all previous attendance counts.
And Winter Fest, which followed the crowd-pleasing Santa Train, was an unprecedented success – drawing huge numbers of families, even as Jack Frost snapped in.
What else happened? Quite a bit and too much to briefly list. But one big change isn’t so obvious: The Independence Police Department added a motorcycle-driving police officer, who is not easy to spot. He can lurk on side streets without being seen and when he is sighted by passing motorists, it’s often because he’s by a car window, writing a ticket.
This summary doesn't cover city services except those that touch upon public safety and includes non-profit organizations that serve the public.
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