2A ܂ WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2018 ܂ APPEAL TRIBUNE
Oregon tree shines bright at Capitol
Visitors photograph the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree, a noble fir from Oregon,
after a lighting ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
House Speaker Paul Ryan listens to Bridgette Harrington as she recites a poem
before the lighting of the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree.
SAUL LOEB, AFP/GETTY IMAGES
ERIK S. LESSER/ EPA-EFE
Council
Sears, 69, will begin his second term in
January. He is a Colorado State Univer­
sity graduate with a degree in civil engi­
neering. His 26­year career with Marion
County  included  running  solid  waste
management,  as  well  as  directing  the
Public Works Department for about six
years.  In  that  role,  he  oversaw  waste
management,  planning,  building  in­
spection, the county’s fleet, animal con­
trol, code violations and more.
“When I retired 11 years ago, I had the
unique opportunity to give back to the
community,” he said. “I felt I understood
most of the jobs the city does – except,
perhaps, policing.”
Sears said he sees the world through
an engineer’s lens – which is “a blessing
and a curse” – and has made infrastruc­
ture his focus. On the city’s transporta­
tion  plan  committee,  he’s  now  helping
craft  the  matrix  by  which  projects  are
ranked.  He’s  also  on  an  advisory  com­
mittee for Highways 213 and 99E to the
Oregon Department of Transportation.
To him, Silverton’s most pressing in­
frastructure  needs  are  a  new  water
treatment  plant,  the  installation  of  a
pump  station  to  get  water  there  from
Silver Creek in event of problems in Abi­
qua Creek, dredging of Silverton Reser­
voir to expand storage capacity, repairs
to aging sewer pipes, and an overhaul of
McClaine Street.
He’s  expressed  concern  over  the
open­ditch  storm  drainage  system  in
“Mill Town,” Silverton’s Northside Addi­
tion  and  repeatedly  proposed  expand­
ing  the  Urban  Renewal  District  to  in­
clude  parts  of  it  so  the  neighborhood
can get extra funding for projects there.
Continued from Page 1A
Ninety­eight  percent  of  those  remain­
ing ended up passing their medical ex­
ams, and they remain a tight­knit group,
Neideigh said.
Her  career  path  led  from  cardiology
at  Charleston  Area  Medical  Center,  to
student health at Western Oregon Uni­
versity,  to  Kaiser  Permanente  in  2012,
where she now works nights and week­
ends,  seeing  everything  from  “coughs
and  colds”  to  “broken  bones,  stitches
and abscesses.”
Her husband, a firefighter, also works
non­traditional  hours.  The  couple  re­
turned to Silverton from Salem in 2013
and  now  happily  shares  child­rearing
duties  with  Neideigh’s  two  sisters  and
their families, who also live in town.
She  started  attending  council  meet­
ings  when  she  grew  concerned  about
the  traffic  and  demands  on  city  infra­
structure she expects new homes in the
Pioneer  Subdivision  will  bring.  She
wanted to make sure the city is only al­
lowing  “controlled,  smart”  growth  be­
cause  “the  decisions  right  now  could
significantly affect the future of Silver­
Jim Sears
Dana Smith
ton,” she said.
She  also  opposed  the  council’s  pro­
posal  to  change  city  code  to  allow  for
more  homeless  housing  communities
like the one envisioned by members of
St. Edward’s Episcopal Church. Instead
of changing language in the city’s code,
she  favored  a  narrow  conditional­use
permit  allowing  cottages  for  homeless
women  to  be  placed  in  the  church’s
parking lot.
“I really felt like there were a lot of so­
lutions that were designed to bring the
community together that were not tak­
en advantage of,” she said. “There is no
diversity  on  our  council,  and  we  need
diversity to come to the best solution.”
Jim Sears
Returning  council  member  Jim
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Councilor  Dana  Smith,  59,  also
earned  voters’  approval  for  a  second
term. She plans to continue chairing the
Environmental  Management  Commit­
tee and working on affordable housing
issues, as the council looks like to create
two  working  groups  that  will  address
homelessness  and  affordable  housing
separately.
Trained as a civil engineer, she sees
her  familiarity  with  building  practices
and codes as one of her best assets, she
said.  She’s  particularly  interested  in
promoting  accessory  dwelling  units,
ADUs, as a “smaller solution with lower
impact on infrastructure” to bring hous­
ing costs down for residents who can’t
afford  rent  and  purchase  prices  in  Sil­
verton.
“I  think  it’s  an  underutilized  ap­
proach,” she said. “No one’s promoting
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community together that
were not taken advantage
of. There is no diversity on
our council, and we need
diversity to come to the
best solution.”
Crystal Neideigh
Silverton city council member
ADUs. Bottom line, it’s not a corporate
model. People aren’t going to make a lot
of money by utilizing them, but it could
be a nice help for communities such as
ours.”
During  her  first  term,  Smith  pushed
for  environmentally  friendly  changes,
such as banning single­use plastic bags,
Styrofoam  and  smoking  in  parks  and
the downtown core area. A council vote
on the plastic bag ban is set to occur in
January, and language on the Styrofoam
ban is being crafted in committee.
On  Facebook,  Smith’s  message  to
voters  after  the  election  was,  “Thank
you, Silverton voters. Now let’s get back
to work,” a circumspect reference, also,
to the resolution in 2017 of an ethics in­
vestigation regarding a 2016 conflict­of­
interest complaint against her.
According to the Oregon Government
Ethics  Commission,  the  investigation
settled with Smith’s payment of $100 for
failing to disclose she has an ownership
interest in a small company seeking to
build communal living cottages in town
before she took part in a council discus­
sion about its sewer connection.
She’d  recused  herself  from  a  prior
discussion  about  the  cottage  develop­
ment  and  said  later  she  thought  the
sewer project’s size and scope – affect­
ing  more  than  a  dozen  households  –
made it OK to for her to discuss.
“In the future, if something comes up
where I have an obvious financial stake,
I  will  step  down  (from  the  conversa­
tion),” she said. “If it’s a bigger, citywide
issue – as I feel the sewer thing was – I
will participate. If I need to claim a pos­
sible  conflict  of  interest,  then  I  know
what to say now.”
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