Greetings from City Hall –
According to the word on the street and a couple of letters coming to City Hall, summer is here and normal. We can tell because of the annual parking problems brought about by the urge to be entertained by gravity, which makes the river flow in interesting ways and people pay to ride in rafts and enjoy themselves. In other words, our economic engine is running nearly up to speed for the summer. And for residents, it is frustrating to not be able to find parking when for seven months of the year parking is not at a premium, to say the least. It is better on the east end of town because we have all of Fourth Street marked off for visitor parking. But complaints from the parts of town that don’t have a Fourth Street within two blocks are coming in and will continue till we find a solution for parking. Meanwhile, we have about six weeks left for the economic engine to be able to run and things will get back to normal, parking-wise. Back to when the mills closed and before the current economic engine came to life. We are working the problem. Actually, both problems – economic and parking.
Main Street
Our “main street” looks great. Over Memorial Day, Flag Day and the Fourth of July, the Chamber and the Downtown Businesses conspired to acquire 14 flags to cover the business blocks from 6th to 4th Streets, with a couple to put in front of the Grade School. If you saw a bunch of spry young men (with some mileage on them) placing the flags in the sidewalk holders, that was the American Legion usual suspects led by Bill Phillips, our Post 73 Commander. Under his guidance, Jon Helquist, Bob Piatt, Dave Wilcox, and I (usually late) collected the flags from the Maupin Market’s basement, stuck them in the holders in the mornings and collected them to return them in the evenings. (The flag crew did have one “young” man for the Fourth flag task, my son Mike, who is only 45 and who will soon be an Air Force Colonel.) When the flags are up, it “finishes” the look of the street with the various tables and benches, the pavers, the street lights with the flower baskets, and the people just enjoying themselves on a hot summer day. Next flag task is to get about 24 more to fill all the holders we have put in the street and fix a permanent place to store them. We also need to acquire some banners and hangars for the two blocks (14 streetlights) that don’t have them yet. If you have seen something in another town that we can use to make the street better looking, tell us about it.
Oregon State Government – A Brief Look at Regional Solutions
The Legislative session ended pretty much on schedule. This in part is because they know that there is short session next February and the can get stuff done then that they used to try to get done in the single session. One of the things that have resulted from the November election is the establishment of the five Regional Solutions Teams, directed by Greg Wolf out of the Governor’s office. Our Central Oregon team is headquartered in Bend and extends from the Columbia to California, with Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Jefferson, Crook, Deschutes, Klamath, and Lake Counties as
members. It is centered in Bend with Annette Liebe as Region 4 Coordinator. If you look at a map of Region 4, you can see that Annette will be spending a lot of time on the road. She has already been to our Small Cities Region 6 meeting and to the Pilot Rock Rural Symposium, as was Greg, so they won’t just sit and wait for something to happen. I have high hopes for this organization in helping cities our size work our way through the tough times, helping us with our issues concerning the economy, our community, the environment, and specific community projects. I mentioned that we need a new library to Greg and I could see the wheels start turning. I have some additional information on Regional Solutions and how Central Oregon Cities Organization fared during the session at City Hall that you can stop by and look at. Stay tuned.
Other Really Important Stuff
Recycling Cardboard. The long recycle bin, as you all know is for cardboard only and recyclers have used it for that exclusively. That’s the good news. The bad news is that many times the concept of flattening the boxes has not been exercised thoroughly and this requires City Public Works to open the bin from the back, flatten boxes that have been thrown in fully intact and essentially rearrange the load of the bin to accommodate the flattened boxes. This last month, during one of these recovery sessions, one of our guys was hit in the eye with a box, dislodging a lens in that eye that had been re-attached and will now have to have it re-re-attached. Don’t know his fully - down time, but the fix will take about 2 weeks to recover. The point is, we need to keep the manned activity in the recycle bin down to a minimum. Please help us do that.
Bill and Jennifer Mitchke’s New Landscape. As you come into Maupin from the south, the next to last turn into town is almost 180 degrees, where you can see a beautiful yard that has evolved to appear this late spring and summer. It is a combination of good looking grass, rocks, plants, a natural looking water feature, and sprinklers programmed to automatically keep the place beautiful. I know the effort that goes into a project like this – we have one in our back yard. But Bill and Jennifer have set up a wonderful prelude to the new street for the north-bound traveler (or a scenic epilogue of same for those headed south). Great work, folks. Thank you.
Post Office Closures. Maupin is not one of the 3653 post offices across the country the USPS is “studying” to see if they should be closed. Oregon currently has 41 in the study, including Antelope and Shaniko in Wasco County and Rufus, Grass Valley and Kent in Sherman County. USPS says as many as 3000 in the study have only two hours of business a day even though they are open longer. I think Maupin is O.K. for a while.
Wasco County Fair. August is County Fair month. There are several reasons to go, but the excitement on Sunday will include three or four cars in the destruction derby. Rod has passed his sponsorship to Justin Ashley and another is a Senior project. I remember the first time I saw Rod in the arena – it was a wild burro race. The racer had to lead the burro to the far end of the arena and ride it back. Rod had no trouble leading the burro; its feet only hit the ground every five feet. But on the way back, Rod ended up on his back with the burro on top of Rod on it’s back. I think that was the week Rod went home and started working on another mode of transportation to compete in.
That’s it. As we watch the shenanigans going on in Washington D.C. it could remind us of a pre-school where the little kids don’t play well together. But we have to remember at least two things: we sent them there; and they are playing with our money. So we can only hope they work it out so that we don’t have to learn Mandarin just to apply for a car loan. Come to think of it, if the people who are in charge of spending our money had to learn Mandarin …. nah, we don’t elect people smart enough to do that. In the meantime, if you see the guys out with the “roto-rooter”/vacuum truck, cleaning out the storm drains before they start to smell bad, and hear them talking to the truck, that ain’t Mandarin – it’s probably a version of Anglo-Saxon. Don’t listen close.
Cheers, Denny