Greetings from City Hall

This is the time of year where it would be good if we could just take a 28-day nap. Cold, foggy days, snow sneaking in some nights, wood-splitting the primary mode of exercise, pipes freezing up – all the trappings of winter in north Central Oregon. But today the sun is out – still cold – and I just put up a sign on the credit union door saying there aren’t enough people well in The Dalles for somebody to come out here and open the branch. Everything else seems to be up and running. Still might be nice to wake up on the first of March and have only three weeks left till spring.

Upcoming Community Meetings – Moving Maupin Forward, Step #1

This is the third letter that has mentioned our “Moving Maupin Forward” plan and it is the last one before the community gets involved. In this three-step process, we have already completed Step #1 by holding a City Council Workshop on Saturday morning, January 22^nd, to review the existing Strategic Plan and what we have been able to accomplish. As those of you who helped us work the Strategic Plan in 2005 may recall, we concentrated on eight areas within that plan: Economic Development; Parks and Recreation; Community Pride and Beautification; the Chamber of Commerce; Broadband Technology; Housing and Services; Cultural Affairs; and City of Maupin. We have made good progress in some of the areas such as Economic Development. With the Central Oregon Microenterprise Facilitation Program, we were able to nurture four new businesses in the area, but have made only some progress in engendering family-wage jobs. The goal of the 2005 exercise for Parks and Recreation was to create a South Wasco County Parks and Recreation District complete with a tax base to support it. We have made no progress on the district itself, but have expanded our park services with wireless internet, picnic shelters, walking paths and a skateboard park. This may be one of those goals where time will tell us to change our goal to better fit the community. Community Pride and Beautification was addressed in many ways by our 2009 Deschutes Avenue Rehabilitation Project. The Street came first, then the businesses, then trees and flower baskets. We have also initiated aggressive recycle and hazardous waste programs that are doing well. Several community events have occurred – the Community Sale, Grapes, Garden and Grill, Opening Day at Imperial River Company, Splash for Pink and Riverfest. Several have or will evolve into signature events for the community and will reappear seasonally as they develop. The Chamber of Commerce has significantly expanded and is now funded with our new Transient Lodging Fee so that it can be fully effective at tourism promotion and business development. This progress includes a good business plan, increased members and an energetic, salaried director. When we put Broadband Technology on the list, most of us who had internet capability were on the old dial-up system. Since then, CenturyTel (now CenturyLink) has made DSL available to anybody within 18,000 feet of their office on Dufur Avenue, but it could be improved. Housing and Servicing goals were partially filled with the Deschutes Rim Health Clinic and Balentine Dentistry in brand new facilities, and Canyon Rim’s Assisted Care Living Facility next door. But our school population is still slowly declining and little or no progress has been made to increase affordable housing. Creation of a cultural arts facility to fulfill our Cultural Affairs goals has also made no significant progress but several things hold promise: the new South Wasco County Library and staff have developed multiple cultural, literature and art programs for youth and families and the Town and Country Players are in the process of moving into the City-managed American Legion Hall. The studies to convert the Legion building into a multi-use Community Center have begun with a visit by an architect this week that is scheduled to provide, by the next City Council meeting, an initial assessment of what actions to take in this conversion. The City has also engaged the CEO of the Libraries of Eastern Oregon (LEO) to do the same to bring our library service up to the standards required by the level of use our branch of the new County Library has enjoyed since it was established two years ago. This action also has fulfilled some of the City of Maupin’s goals of establishing better library service, upgrading our downtown main street and complete Phase III of Mountain Fir Community Park. And included in the study for a new library to be performed by the CEO of LEO is to consider combining the library with a new City Hall. So overall, there are many things in the Strategic Plan of 2005 that have been accomplished as well as many other things that weren’t considered in the plan but have contributed to the operations of the City. But much remains to be done and that’s where everybody has a role.

Upcoming Community Meeting(s) – Moving Maupin Forward, Step #2

Step #2 is simply this: Conduct Community Involvement Meetings. The purpose is to solicit from the community ideas with which to expand our list of goals in our updated Strategic Plan. The first meeting will be on February 26, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, at the Cafeteria in the High School. At this meeting we will review the assessment of the goals we have accomplished and determine what actions, if any, need to be done to complete those goals. Then the fun will begin with where we need to go from here. To simplify the activity, we intend to break the future goals into three broad categories: Community Development, Economic Development and Infrastructure. Since many of the goals the council discussed can fit across all three categories, here is a partial list of possible discussion items, in no particular category or priority, just to get the thinking started.

· Transforming the American Legion into a multi-use community center. What needs to be done and why? Who will use it and for what?

· What can we do to improve Parks? BLM land within western City Limits?

· Affordable housing. What is it and who needs it? What can HUD do for us?

· Business licenses. Do we really need them and why?

· Jobs. We all know we need them. Do we build sites for small entrepreneurial enterprises - “build it and they will come”? How can the Port of The Dalles help us with jobs?

· Zoning for jobs and home businesses. Revolving improvement Loan Fund for businesses.

· Additional parking, including a Greenway Parking Project. Identify businesses with large parking requirements, consider alternate parking

· Recycling expansion, composting/chipping facility and open burning ban – is that useful?

· Water metering rates, well-head protection plan, street repair

· East Maupin Beautification

You get the idea. Nothing is off limits. These were some of the things discussed by the council with little expansion. We knew that a real flow of ideas may or may not include all, some or none of these topics. We are really looking forward to the discussions. And we are not concerned with finishing in one day the discussion of all the possible goals that we can hope to accomplish in the next five years. In fact, the second meeting will be on March 26, same time, same place.

That’s it. I hope we all have time to do some thinking on this. Next letter, I’ll talk about Step #3.

Cheers,

Denny