Celebrating canines
in Sisters page 5
Seed to Table planning
harvest dinner page 8
The Nugget
Vol. XXXIX No. 35
Local organizations
team up for kids page 15
P OSTAL CUSTOMER
News and Opinion
from Sisters, Oregon
www.NuggetNews.com
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Sharing an Olympian moment in Rio
District
faces
uncertain
PERS cost
increase
By Charlie Kanzig
Correspondent
While most of us gath-
ered before our television and
computer screens to catch the
Olympics earlier this month,
Sisters resident Tate Metcalf
was navigating Rio de Janeiro
in real time, in part to wit-
ness Ashton Eaton attempt
to defend his Olympic gold
medal in the decathlon.
Metcalf coached Eaton at
Mountain View High School
in Bend.
While it was not Metcalf’s
first Olympics — he traveled
to London in 2012 — the
experience in Rio provided a
contrast.
“Transportation was a
challenge … it was pretty
slow,” he said. “Thankfully
some venues were very close
to where I was staying, so that
was easier, but to get to the
other track stadium often took
up to two hours on bus or the
metro. I think Rio did the best
they could, and no one could
have expected it would be as
smooth as London. It was cer-
tainly better than the media
portrayed things, and I didn’t
PRE-SORTED STANDARD
ECRWSS
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
Sisters, OR
Permit No. 15
By Steve Kadel
Correspondent
hear all sorts of other lan-
guages, and I could feel the
spirit of the Olympic Games
around me.
Sisters School District
and others across Oregon are
bracing for another increase in
Public Employee Retirement
System (PERS) costs during
the 2017-18 biennium.
Sisters Superintendent
Curt Scholl acknowledged
that public employers’ contri-
butions to PERS will increase
during the next budget cycle.
The only question is by
how much.
Most estimates indicate
Oregon’s public employers
will have to pay an extra $800
million during the next bien-
nium starting July 2017.
“It’s going to impact us,
but we’re still not sure how
See OlYMpICS on page 29
See pERS on page 24
photo provided
Tate Metcalf of Sisters shares an Olympian moment in Rio with Ashton Eaton.
experience any of the negative
stuff that the media had antici-
pated before the games.”
For Metcalf, the positive
part of traveling to the ven-
ues was being surrounded
by people from all over the
world.
“Right away I felt that I
was in some sort of Utopia,”
said Metcalf. “I would be on
the bus or the train and could
SES students meet and Council approves roundabout options
greet their teachers
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
By Steve Kadel
Correspondent
Isabelle Norman broke out
in a big grin as she walked
into her classroom at Sisters
Elementary School last week.
“I missed you,” she
exclaimed upon seeing
teacher Gretchen Lane, who
taught the 7-year-old girl last
year.
“I missed you, too,” Lane
replied, noting Isabelle will
be her student again this year
as a second-grader.
Children reconnected
with friends, parents chatted
with teachers, and Principal
Becky Stoughton roamed the
Inside...
building greeting new chil-
dren and familiar ones on
Thursday, August 25.
It was the annual Stop and
Drop event for first- through
fourth-graders. The hour-long
program gave kids a chance to
see their new classroom and
put supplies in cubbyholes in
a relaxed atmosphere before
the work of school begins.
“This relieves the anxiety
about the first day of school,”
Lane said. “These little ones
look forward to school all
summer, and when it gets
close they want to see their
room and everything.”
See SChOOl on page 22
Construction activity
on the roundabout at the
Highway 20/Barclay Drive/
McKinney Butte intersection
is slated to begin in February
2017 with the installation
of utilities, and will be com-
pleted in time for the 2017
Memorial Day weekend,
according to Mike Darling,
project leader for the Oregon
Department of Transportation
(ODOT).
Sisters City Council
received a thorough briefing
on the project by Darling and
three other ODOT employees
at their August 25 workshop.
During the regular Council
meeting, they approved a
photo by Jim Cornelius
By Memorial day weekend of next year, the cars here will be going
“roundabout.” A construction plan is in place.
motion to adopt the traffic
management, aesthetics, and
landscaping options for the
project.
The attention to detail
by ODOT was evident
throughout the briefing. Like
with the Cascade Avenue
improvement project, ODOT
has made extensive effort to
See ROuNdABOuT on page 30
Letters/Weather ................ 2 Announcements ............... 10 Obituaries ....................... 16 Sisters Saver ................... 23 Classifieds ..................26-28
Meetings ........................... 3 Movies & Entertainment ....11 Bunkhouse Chronicles ......21 Crossword ....................... 25 Real Estate .................28-32