SINCE 1979 • VOLUME 39, NO. 17
SECTION A
JANUARY 26, 2018
$1.00
Egli named Keizer First Citizen
Waremart
opens Feb. 1
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
Whoever follows Joe Egli
as Keizer's First Citizen will
have a high bar to clear.
Egli's
long
list
of
community
involvement
includes the Keizer Chamber
of Commerce, Rotary Club
of Keizer, Keizer Iris Festival,
McNary High School, the
City of Keizer and the Salem-
Keizer Education Foundation
(SKEF).
Egli was honored as First
Citizen on Saturday, Jan. 20, at
an awards banquet sponsored
by the Keizer Chamber and
Bonaventure Senior Living.
He was one of four annual
award winners that included
Merchant of the Year Larry
Jackson, Service to Education
Award winner Jason Flores
and Matt Lawyer, who was
selected for the President's
Award given out by the
departing president of the
Chamber of Commerce. All
the winners were presented
Gubser makes
huge MPFS
donation
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
LEFT: Matt Lawyer accepts
the Keizer Chamber of
Commerce President's
Award.
ABOVE: Joe Egli makes his
way to the stage after being
named as Keizer's First Citizen,
clocks provided by Boucher's
Jewelers representing the time
they've given back to the
community.
“(Joe's) accomplishments
are diverse and contribute
almost daily to making Keizer
a better place to live, work
and play,” said Jim Trett, the
previous winner of the First
Citizen title. “Anyone who
reaches out to him will fi nd
a listening ear and, more than
that, a helping hand.”
No change
to fi eld rates
at KLL park
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
There will be no change
to the fi eld usage rates at
Keizer Little League Park
for 2018.
Keizer Little League Pres-
ident Brad Arnsmeier with-
drew a request for an across-
the-board $10 increase to
the fi eld rates
via
email
before
the
Keizer City
Council was
slated to take
up the issue
at its meet-
ing Tuesday,
Jan. 16.
“After much consider-
ation and discussion among
the members of our board
we feel that it is not the
time to ask for an increase
in fees,” Arn-
smeier wrote
in a message
to City Man-
ager
Chris
Eppley. “We
are trying to
be sensitive to other orga-
nizations in Keizer that also
use the fi elds and recognize
that better communica-
tion would lead to a better
understanding of why the
complex needs additional
funds for the fi elds.”
Arnsmeier said KLL
would “be mindful to in-
clude other stakeholders in
the process when we ap-
proach the city about a
change.”
Members of the city
council talked with repre-
sentatives of KLL and Mc-
Nary Youth Baseball about
the proposed fee increase at
a council meeting in De-
c e m b e r,
but the
discussion
quickly
devolved
as MYP
leadership
protested
the
in-
crease in fi eld rates.
The council cut the talks
short and requested more
budget information from
both KLL and MYB before
proceeding with an approval
of
the
rates.
At the
time, KLL
had sub-
mitted a
list of ex-
penses associated with the
park, but the only revenues
it listed were fees collected
from MYB.
Before the meeting last
week, MYB leaders had
submitted a detailed bud-
get including income and
Please see FIELDS, Page A12
Egli has served on most
of the committees formed
by the Keizer Chamber of
Commerce, is a former Keizer
city councilor, a longtime,
active Rotarian who leads
that organization's annual
Golden Ticket fundraiser and
currently serves as a board
member for SKEF. Recently,
Egli fl ew to California to pick
up and drive back a mobile
library for SKEF.
Egli thanked friends and
family in accepting the award
and recalled visiting Keizer
before it was a city to eat at
Fortune Cookie, a longtime
restaurant
serving
Asian
fare before it burned to the
ground.
“I always thought is was a
special thing and only found
out later that my parents were
Diner's Club members and
they offered 2-for-1,” Egli
said.
After moving to the area, he
said he found out quickly that
the Keizer Way was “volunteer
or move.”
“Keizer isn't about a city or
council or chamber, it's about
people,” Egli said.
Egli is an agent with R.
Bauer Insurance.
Jackson, a third-generation
owner of Jackson's Body
Shop, was introduced by
Bob Shackelford, last year's
recipient of the Merchant of
the Year Award.
PAGE A2
Please see AWARDS, Page A12
Cinema deal fi rst
of its kind for Keizer
Straight
outta Italy
PAGE A13
Submitted
The ground lease for a
new Keizer cinema is a
unique step for the city,
and it may not be the last.
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
Sometime in the next 13 months, Keizer is
getting a new stream of revenue for its general
fund.
Last week, the Keizer City Council signed
a ground lease with a cinema developer for
property Keizer owns on the west side of Keizer
Station. Construction is expected to begin in
March for a nine-screen theater across from the
transit center on Keizer Station Boulevard. For
Keizer City Manager Chris Eppley, the lease
brought to fruition an idea he'd championed
for most of his 18 years at city hall.
When the cinema owner wanted to purchase
the property, Eppley presented an alternative in
the ground lease.
“You can do three things with property: sit
on it for a future sale, sell it or lease it. The
advantage and disadvantage of selling are that
you get a big pot of money all at once, and city
councils tend to spend big pots of money the
city gets all at once,” said Eppley.
Case in point: the property next to the
cinema site on the corner of McLeod Lane
Northeast and Lockhaven Drive Northeast.
The city sold that parcel of land to Salem
Radiology in 2011 for $1.4 million, then spent
it acquiring property for the land that became
Keizer Rapids Park.
Keizer purchased the Keizer Station land
Please see DEAL, Page A11
Smaller capacity, luxury seating planned
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
Keizer's new cinema is
shaping up to be one of the
hottest tickets in town.
While the theater will
be smaller than some others
in the area, designer James
Blissett said it will have some
of the most luxurious seating
– recliner seats that will allow
the audience to relax in a
nearly prone position. Blissett
is president of Seattle-based
The Design Collective.
“It's the latest thing for
theaters, it means there are half
as many seats per screen but
attendance usually doubles,”
Blissett said.
According to Blissett, the
timeline for the project has
construction beginning in
March with an opening in
November.
“Theaters usually try to hit
one of two opening windows:
either before the holiday
movies come out or right
before the summer season
starts,” Blissett said.
The largest auditorium in
the Keizer cinema will have
a 48-foot screen with 147
recliners seats. Additional
auditoriums
will
range
between 40 and 96 seats and
the smallest screens will be
about 30 feet wide. There will
be a total of 594 seats in the
23,700-square-foot house.
The three largest screens
will have stadium-style risers
Please see CINEMA, Page A11
Seniors bid
adieu on mat