SINCE 1979 • VOLUME 39, NO. 9
SECTION A
DECEMBER 1, 2017
$1.00
Meadows Park fi rst on tap
for parks fee improvements
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
Cooper Hurt, 10, had a clear
notion of what he wanted in a
new play structure at Mead-
ows Park in north Keizer.
“I want a little balcony that
you can just look out from.
That would be cool,” said
Cooper.
However, even more than
that, Cooper and his 12-year-
old sister, Riley, want acces-
sibility. Riley is such an ad-
vocate for accessibility issues
she made it the focus of her
TEDxSalem talk earlier this
month. Yeah, a TEDx talk. At
age 12.
“The way the park is now,
my mom has trouble get-
ting to it,” said Riley, whose
mother, Jill, uses a wheelchair.
“When we were younger she
had trouble watching us.”
She also wanted swings and
things to climb, but they were
a distant second.
Riley and Cooper were just
two of about 20 Meadows-
area residents who turned out
at a information-gathering
forum regarding the future
of the park. It was held at the
Keizer Civic Center Tuesday,
Nov. 28.
The air at the forum was
best described as eager. That
may be because Keizer Public
Works Director Bill Lawyer
and Parks Supervisor Robert
Johnson can barely contain
their own excitement.
“I am extremely happy to
be having this conversation
and it’s something I’ve looked
forward to. We haven’t been
able to have it because we
couldn’t afford it,” said John-
son.
The stick stirring the pot
is a parks services fee the city
of Keizer began collecting
in November. Moving for-
ward, Keizer residents will be
charged $4 per month to pay
for parks maintenance and
improvements. An additional
$4-per-month fee is being
charged for police services.
Even though the decision
to enact the fees was made
over the summer, Lawyer said
there are still surreal moments.
“We’re able to talk about
doing things that I never ex-
pected we’d be able to do,”
Lawyer said.
The forum on Meadows
Park made for an exciting
kick-off point.
“We got nothing but posi-
Lady Celts
return
to court
PAGE A12
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
Cooper Hurt pitches his idea for a balcony on the new play structure at Meadows Park to Bill
Lawyer, director of Keizer Public Works.
River Road access point, spin-
ner seats, a merry-go-round,
monkey bars and a parkour/
ninja course.
Lawyer said he’s aiming for
a new structure and surface in
the area of about $170,000.
A large part of that cost will
be the installation of the new
tive feedback tonight,” John-
son said. “And we plan to try
to incorporate as many of the
suggestions as we can.”
In addition to Cooper’s and
Riley’s votes for accessibil-
ity, the list of requests in a re-
vamped park included: swings,
a climbing wall, a gate at the
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
Keizerites gave mostly
glowing marks to the way
the city of Keizer is run,
but volunteerism – a staple
of “The Keizer Way” – ap-
pears to be on the way out
of vogue.
The city recently com-
pleted an online survey of
residents with about 800 re-
spondents. The results from
the multiple choice segments
of the survey are now avail-
able at www.keizer.org.
For the most part (61 per-
cent), responders felt they
were getting their money’s
worth for local taxes. About
22 percent said they didn’t
know and 16 percent felt
they weren’t.
If given the chance to dole
out the city budget them-
selves, respondents heavily
favored public safety. Given a
$100 pot to draw from, resi-
dents allocated $64 to public
safety, $21 to administration,
$8 for community develop-
ment, $5 for parks and $2 for
a contingency fund.
Responders (55 percent)
also wanted to see the Urban
Growth Boundary (UGB) of
the city expand slightly. Only
6 percent wanted to see ag-
gressive expansion of the
UGB, while a little less than
40 percent thought Keizer
was big enough already. Ex-
pansion of the UGB would
require knocking down a lot
of bureaucratic and zoning
barriers. Keizer shares the
UGB with Salem and is re-
quired to have capacity that
will last for 20 years. The ca-
pacity is already there, but it’s
all in south Salem.
When asked about their
impressions of public safety-
related issues, residents were
overwhelmingly (94 percent)
found to have confi dence in
Keizer police offi cers. About
the same percentage felt safe
in Keizer and in their own
neighborhoods, but it also
depended on the time of day.
When asked whether they
felt safe walking down their
street during the day, nearly
65 percent strongly agreed
with the statement. After
nightfall, the percentage that
strongly agreed dropped to
27 percent. That may seem
like a steep decline, but it’s
an improvement overall from
the last time the survey was
conducted in 2013-14. At
that time, only 55 percent of
respondents strongly agreed
to feeling safe walking down
their street during the day;
only 20 percent of the re-
sponders strongly agreed
with the statement about
walking their street at night.
About 84 percent of re-
sponders felt that traffi c is a
problem in Keizer, but only
70 percent attributed those
problems to traffi c violations.
Regarding police time spent
enforcing traffi c laws, almost
60 percent said KPD was in
line with their expectations,
about 34 percent wanted
more traffi c enforcement and
7 percent wanted less traffi c
enforcement.
The survey also found
that there's less investment
in the city’s motto of Pride,
Spirit and Volunteerism. Only
17 percent of responders said
4101 River Rd N - KEIZER
(former Knecht’s)
503.390.0161
Please see SURVEY, Page 11
Do you volunteer in
the City of Keizer?
NO
83
YES
17
I feel safe walking
down my street
during the day.
64
SOMEWHAT AGREE
25
3
796 RESPONDENTS
I feel safe walking
down my street
during the night.
SOMEWHAT AGREE
30
STRONGLY AGREE
27
AGREE
25
PAGE A2
Please see PARKS, Page 11
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
A 25-year-old man struck
by a vehicle while crossing
River Road North survived
the collision, but ended up in
handcuffs after an altercation at
Salem Hospital.
Keizer Police Department
offi cers responded to the re-
port of a vehicle vs. pedes-
trian collision about 9 p.m. on
Wednesday, Nov. 22.
Offi cers found a male lay-
ing in the northbound lanes of
the roadway on their arrival.
The man was
a pedestrian
later identi-
fi ed as Brian
Lee Willis, 25,
a
transient.
Willis is be-
B. Willis
lieved to have
crossed the road without a
crosswalk near Dutch Bros. As
he did, he was struck by a 1994
Toyota Corolla operated by a
20-year-old Keizer man.
Darkness and rain at the
time are believed to have been
factors. Willis was wearing
dark clothing at the time.
Paramedics
transported
Willis to Salem Health where
he received treatment for non-
life threatening injuries. How-
ever, after being released, Willis
refused to leave the hospital,
said Lt. David Okada of the
Salem Police Department.
“The subject was dis-
charged from the hospital and
asked to leave, but he refused
to do so. He was ultimately de-
tained by hospital security and
our offi cers transported him to
the jail on charges of trespass,”
Okada said.
Willis was determined to be
the one at fault for the colli-
sion and no citations were is-
sued.
786 RESPONDENTS
STRONGLY AGREE
Crystal Apple
winner
Pedestrian
survives
collision,
leaves
hospital in
handcuffs
SURVEY SAYS:
Residents like Keizer,
not volunteerism
surface itself. While it’s called
a pour-in-place surface, it ac-
tually has to be mixed one
wheelbarrow at a time and
then smoothed, by hand, with
16-inch trowels. It will, of
course, be wheelchair acces-
sible.
4
751 RESPONDENTS
Merry Christmas
Community
dinner packs
'em in
PAGE A4
Wrestlers
back in
action
PAGE A12
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