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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (March 9, 2018)
PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, MARCH 9, 2018 Lawyer takes city motto to heart By RANDOM PENDRAGON Keizertimes Intern It is Saturday, January 20, the night of the First Citizen and Awards Banquet. Matt Lawyer is in attendance, expecting only to support fellow members of the community and help set it all up. He had no idea that he himself would be honored that night. Even as outgoing Chamber president Nate Bauer began describing the contri- butions of the recipient of the President’s award, Matt had his mind on others. “I was actually getting really excited because they started to tell the story about the person who was doing these things, and instantly I thought about Mark Caillier, who’s been a longtime man of Keizer,” Matt said. “Then they started talking about parks stuff, so I instantly thought about Clint Holland and Dylan Juran who were both in the room.” It wasn’t until the last sec- ond, when they actually called his name that he believed it. “When Nate said my name, I kind of thought at fi rst he was picking on me and then it clicked like, ‘Oh man, this is real.’” He found the experience hard to describe. “The only other time I felt the way I’d felt was when I found out my wife was preg- nant with our fi rst kid ... If you would have told me that morn- ing that I was going to walk in there and get anything other than the opportunity to help clean up I would have said you were full of it.” Pride For Matt, it’s hard to pin- point exactly where his dedi- cation comes from, stating that he’s “always just kind of liked helping out.” But his fi rst taste of real volunteerism came dur- ing the Willamette Valley Flood of 1996 when he was in high school. “We helped a lot of people evacuate,” Matt, who’s now 35, explained. “Then, I spent the entire evacuation at Whiteaker Middle School, helping people who were shel- tered there.” Matt helped distribute meals and fresh blankets and light- ened the mood for kids shel- tered in the school. “It was a lot of fun getting to do that.” After serving in the Navy for just over nine years, Matt returned to Keizer. He began working with the Claggett Creek Water- shed Council where he forged much of the philosophy that would lead him through his community work. He recounts a story about doing an inver- tebrates study of Labish Ditch and the excitement of seeing fi sh return to the lake, “When I was in high school you didn’t see as many… The health of the creek was poor, but people have started to take better no- tice locally.” To him, this was emblem- atic of some of the values he learned while in the Navy. “Being part of the military helped me understand just how it important is to take care of the people around you,” he said. “They always taught us to be aware of our footprint.” His work with the Water- shed Council highlights his views on personal and com- munity responsibility. “I think if we begin to start taking care of what’s in our own backyard and start to share the importance of understand- ing the cumulative adverse ef- fects that can happen just out of your own home,” Matt ex- plains. “If we can start to make meaningful efforts locally, may- be as it gets out to the wider world they might look at Keiz- er as the model city for what cities could be.” “Pride, spirit, and volun- teerism is not an accident,” he added. “We take a lot of pride as being citizens of Keizer, it takes a tremendous amount of spirit to the kind of work no- body wants to do.” “It just makes sense to care for where you live.” Spirit Matt then began to get in- KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald Matt Lawyer assists with tree planting at the Keizer Rotary Arboretum in Keizer Rapids Park. volved with the Keizer Parks Advisory Board where he quickly got involved in discus- sions about funding. To study for his fi rst meeting, Matt went back and watched the previ- ous two years of meetings. He says that the parks meetings had become pretty routine. An idea would be presented, but fund- ing wasn’t there to back it and solutions were few. “We had a gentlemen [dur- ing my fi rst meeting] stick his fi nger in our chest and say, ‘this is what’s broken in our parks,’” Matt said. “What I drew out of that was: Keizer has a lot of parks, they’ve been maintained by volunteers, but there’s never been the infrastructure or the dollars to support the need.” Later, Mayor Cathy Clark challenged the board to begin tackling questions about fund- ing. “Over the course of the next couple weeks, I started asking questions,” he said. “I was driving the public works staff crazy ‘cause I was trying to really understand what’s going on.” The board came to a cross- roads and was presented with the choice of a few options. The fi rst, create a separate tax- able Parks District, which Matt says “would cost a tremendous amount of money.” The second, bonds and lev- ies could be issued, but that Please see LAWYER, Page A6 WILL A METTE LUTHERAN RETIREMENT COMMUNIT Y Cordially invites you to join us in fellowship & celebration Palm Sunday Brunch March 25 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Cost: $12.00 Ages 11 – Adult $6.00 Ages 4 – 10 Free Children 3 and under All proceeds will be donated to support local community and worldwide projects. Please RSVP by March 19, 2018 to the business offi ce. If your group consists of 5 or more persons, Reserve Early! Your locally owned and family operated collision repair business since 1958 3353 Silverton Road NE in Salem ◆ 503-363-1990 7693 Wheatland Rd N Keizer, OR 97303 503-393-1491 willamettelutheran.com Willamette Lutheran Retirement Community “I was in a collision recently. It was a painful and traumatic experience. Th e staff at Jackson’s were very helpful! 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