PAGE A8, KEIZERTIMES, JULY 10, 2015
BOOK,
continued from Page A1
TAX,
continued from Page A1
“It was tough, I know noth-
ing about the internet and the
cleaning lady at our retirement
home had to help me with
that. You would have thought
I worked at Offi ceMax since I
spent so much time there, but
they were a big help,” Christo-
pherson said.
The hard work paid off in
the end. Graham’s fi rst book,
Wally’s Friends, is already avail-
able on amazon.com and
barnesandnoble.com, and three
more are in the offi ng.
Graham and Christopherson
think there are several morals
to their story: listen to the nag-
ging kids, never feel too old to
try something new, something
or other about the importance
of friendship and seeing each
other’s uniqueness.
“Wally is a terrifi c human
being even though he doesn’t
always believe it,” Christopher-
son said.
“I never would have done it
without him,” said Graham. “I
would have gotten disgusted in
the fi rst 10 minutes of trying.”
It’s almost too easy to draw
parallels between their story
and Graham’s fi rst poem about
Allan Pollock, general
manager of Salem-Keizer
Transit, said the transit district
wouldn’t start collecting the
funds until April 2017. How-
ever, more service would be
implemented before that.
“The plan as it stands now
is to implement Saturday ser-
vice in the summer of 2016,
then Sunday and extra eve-
ning service probably the
summer of 2017,” Pollock
said. “We have reserves to use
before the funds are collected,
but we’re still not sure of the
exact timing. That is our ten-
tative schedule.”
Weekend and extended
evening service used to be
part of the transit district, but
were cut several years ago due
to the recession. Adding ser-
vices back has been the main
goal of the district’s Moving
Forward plan.
Phase 1 of the plan, be-
ing implemented on Sept. 8,
calls for increased frequency
on busy routes, buses run-
ning on a consistent schedule
and more cross-town routes
throughout Salem and Keizer.
The additional service to
Submitted
Wally Graham’s illustration for the Mister Toad poem.
a toad and a bear, but the resem-
blance is too precious to ignore.
That very fi rst poem, written
more than 20 years ago, ends
with the line:
“So children, don’t be blue.
There’s something special
about every one of you.”
be funded by the payroll tax
would be phase 2 of the Mov-
ing Forward plan.
In the spring, transit offi -
cials conducted surveys to see
if the payroll tax or a property
tax would be more popular
with the public.
“We did two surveys, a
telephone survey and an on-
line survey,” Pollock said. “The
data from the telephone sur-
vey, which is statistically valid,
is when we surveyed 300 like-
ly voters in the service area.”
In the phone survey, half of
the voters were asked about
the property tax fi rst, with
the other half asked about
the payroll tax fi rst. When the
property tax option was given
fi rst, 58 percent of respondents
were in favor. When the pay-
roll question was asked fi rst,
67 percent were in favor.
When more specifi c costs
were given, support for prop-
erty tax fell to 49 percent,
while support for the payroll
tax fell to 57 percent. Once
the payroll question was clari-
fi ed to indicate employers
would be the ones paying,
support went back up to 61
percent.
“Then we did an online
survey, which had more than
2,000 respondents,” Pollock
said. “We were very pleased
with 2,000 responses. Gener-
ally the numbers were pretty
much the same.”
Based on those survey re-
sults, board members opted to
go with the payroll tax option,
which would be about $1,050
a year for a business with an
annual payroll of $500,000.
If the levy is approved, Pol-
lock said a new student bus
pass program would tentative-
ly be implemented in Septem-
ber 2016.
“But I know the board is
also thinking about doing it
earlier,” Pollock said. “We’re
still trying to fi nalize the
numbers.”
Plans should be more fi rm
soon.
“These are all tentative
plans,” Pollock said. “The
board will decide on an im-
plementation schedule prob-
ably in their August meeting.”
For more information on
the Moving Forward plan go
to Cherriots.org/MovingFor-
ward.
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