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Wednesday, May 22, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I
N I
O
N
City did not protect
homeowners
By Doug Wills
Guest Columnist
Honoring those who
died defending our
FREEDOM & DEMOCRACY
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be
no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.
To the Editor:
After retiring, my wife and I moved to
Sisters 4 a place we always loved to visit and
enjoy. However, our enjoyment of the small-
town experience is fading away.
Businesses moving in, traffic getting worse
(try to make a left on to Cascade Avenue
sometime), and increasing vandalism. The
vandalism is the reason I am writing this letter.
Within the last few days someone went into
the Village Green and vandalized our flag pole.
We assumed we had a pretty secure installa-
tion as the rope pulley is inside the pole and
access has to be made through a locked hatch.
Someone managed to pick the lock, lower the
flag and remove the counter-weights from the
rope. This allowed the flag to go back up to
the top of the pole with no easy way to get the
flag down. And, of course this is just before
our Memorial Day event that the American
Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars hold
in the park. We are appreciative of our city in
their willingness to help effect repairs.
While looking around the flowerbed sur-
rounding the gazebo to see if the counter-
weights had just been tossed into the flower
bed (they hadn9t), I made another discovery.
The vandal(s) have broken a piece out of the
rock that has the memorial plaque and names
of our departed veterans on it. Then I noticed
that the plaque that held the information hon-
oring one of Sisters9 veteran supporters had
been removed from its mounting. Fortunately,
the plaque was found in the flowerbed.
Maybe this is just a sign of the times, but
it9s a sad period of time when a memorial to all
of our local veterans is desecrated. Seems like
a pretty brazen act to me. Right in the park,
See LETTERS on page 26
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The Sisters City Council
at the May 15 meeting,
encouraged by certain staff
members and based on
facts that were not entirely
accurate, approved to make
Williamson and Hill con-
necting streets from the
new Hayden development
at McKenzie Meadows
Village.
These roads will connect
through the Village at Cold
Springs, continuing through
the new Village at Cold
Springs East and continuing
on to Rail Way. This deci-
sion will turn our privately
owned and maintained roads
into a major traffic thor-
oughfare with hundreds of
extra cars per day.
This approval also poten-
tially committed your tax
dollars being allocated to
cover the legal costs that
this decision will incur.
Why will your tax dollars
be spent on this decision?
The City Council ignored
the data presented to them
that these were designated
private roads by the City
in 2005 when Hayden sub-
mitted their original master
plan for the Village at Cold
Springs. We own all these
roads, pay taxes on these
roads, and all the homeown-
ers pay for all costs to main-
tain these roads. The City
Council also ignored their
own codes 4 which outline
how these streets were to be
built 4 and allowed them to
be built not following their
specifications.
All of this is in clear
violation of the City9s own
transportation plan, and
yet was inaccurately pre-
sented to the City Council
and Planning Commission.
Certain City staff members
pushed for these roads to be
connected without concern
for the safety of the children
that play in their yards, ride
their bikes on these narrow
streets, the adults that ride
their bikes on these streets
and those of us that walk
on these sidewalks. Another
comment made by Mr.
Bessman, the traffic engi-
neer consultant that lives
in Bend, was that the nar-
row streets will automati-
cally slow traffic down. Yet,
on April 15, Mr. Bessman
drove down Fremont, turn-
ing onto Williamson and
was in the middle of the
street, past my house as I
was pulling out of my drive-
way, well in excess of the
posted speed limit. Is this a
<do as I say, not as I do=?
The key item we
requested was to have emer-
gency gates installed at the
west end of Williamson and
Hill. I provided the City
and City Council with those
specifications which I had
received from Doug Green,
the fire safety manager for
the Sisters/Camp Sherman
Fire District. Based on com-
ments from the Council
members, they either did
not read this information or
didn9t understand it.
It was very obvious
the way the entire April
24 meeting was set up, it
was geared to promote the
City9s agenda and program
and not to help the citizens
of Sisters that live in the
Village at Cold Springs. At
the City Council meeting on
April 24, all the City plan-
ners, the consultant traffic
engineer and Hayden were
given unlimited time to
present their information,
which in some cases was not
accurate.
When it came time for
those of us that will be
directly impacted by their
decision, to present our con-
cerns and recommendations,
we were given only three
minutes each AND NOT
ALLOWED TO SHOW
OUR SUPPORTING DATA
ON THE SCREEN.
It also should be noted
that nobody on the City staff
nor the City Council live in
the Village at Cold Springs,
so they will not be affected
by their decision. Their
decision will impact over
300 citizens of Sisters. I also
question how many of the
staff and Council members
actually visited the Village
at Cold Springs, drove the
roads, saw the blind spots,
saw the narrow roads and
realized the potential safety
concerns.
This is how your City
Council and the City staff,
that your taxes pay for,
operate. They give several
variances to the big guys
who do not live here and
don9t contribute much to the
city or the citizens, but they
will not do anything to help
those of us that live, work,
own businesses and pay
taxes in the City of Sisters!
Remember this at the
next election.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.