PAGE A6, KEIZERTIMES, NOVEMBER 8, 2019
Opinion
Establish a civic hall of fame
Two thousand nineteen has been
a year of the passing of some of
Keizer’s early leaders. We have lost
Keizer’s fi rst doctor, Vern
Casterline, its fi rst dentist,
Jerry Bowery. A found-
er of the Keizer Mer-
chants Association (fore-
runner of today’s Keizer
Chamber of Commerce)
Ray Boucher. Bouch-
er’s wife Louise followed
him within days. Former
Mayor Dennis Koho and former
city councilor and noted Keizer
historian Jerry McGee. Ted Anag-
nos, a volunteer football coach at
McNary High School and com-
munity leader.
Each of those who have passed
this year—and other leaders who
have slipped from this mortal coil
in recent years—have been remem-
bered and memorialized by friends
and family. Many had been recog-
nized with honors such as the Keiz-
er Chamber’s First Citizen award.
But that honor doesn’t seem to
be big enough for some of the civ-
ic giants who have be
instrumental in creat-
ing the Keizer we live
in today. We think the
City of Keizer should
establish a Hall of Fame
to recognize and honor
those men and women.
A Keizer Hall of
Fame
committee
should be a public-private organi-
zation, soliciting community input
for nominations for induction. The
eligibility would be strict and ad-
hered to: inductees must have been
involved in more than one area of
interest in the community for at
least 20 years. Inductees could be
living or dead. Inductees would be
decided on once each year. The pro-
cess would start in March of each
year to time announcement with
the annual KeizerFEST event in
our
opinion
May. Announcement of inductees
could be at either a KeizerFEST
ceremony or at a work session of
the city council in early May.
Three names would be chosen
in each of the fi rst three years of
the project, after that there would
be one inductee chosen each year.
To be remembered for all time,
images of the inductees and a short
biography would be etched into a
brass plaque and placed on a wall
either inside or outside the Keizer
Civic Center.
The public-private Hall of Fame
partnership would establish and so-
licit donations for a perpetual fund
that would pay for creation and in-
stallation of the plaques.
As the city nears its 50th anni-
versary and a history that goes back
decades earlier, Keizer has matured
to the point of honoring and re-
membering the people who got
Keizer this far.
—LAZ
We need to rethink our traffi c priorities
By MICHAEL DeBLASI
On Tuesday, Oct. 29, a boy on his
bike was hit by a car crossing River
Road at Sam Orcutt Way. This past
summer, my son came within feet
of being hit by a car crossing River
Road at McNary Estates Drive.
While my incident had a better
ending, I can understand the abso-
lute fear and dread that his mother
felt. But neither of these
were accidents. River
Road is designed to be
dangerous because it
was designed to priori-
tize cars moving quick-
ly. River Road—and
many other streets—is
too wide, too fast, has
too few safe pedestrian
crossings and few, to no, safe bike
lanes.
Traffi c engineers tell us how to
design a street to move cars, but they
don’t tell us how to make our streets
safer (or how to make fi nancially
productive cities). They begin with
a design speed, estimate the project-
ed traffi c volume, they draft a safe
(for drivers) street design based on
their manuals and determine how
much it will cost. Unfortunately,
these manuals typically use highway
standards, which started out only
as recommendations, ignoring that
streets are not highways. To create
safe streets, we must fl ip our prior-
ities by fi rst designing them to be
safer for all users of all ages and abil-
ities, which includes slower speeds.
You should be angry about a
boy getting hit at a “safe” crossing.
Now focus that into action—go
to the city council, the Planning
Commission and Traffi c Safety
committee meetings and demand
that our city prioritize safety. De-
mand that they stop placing hur-
dles when residents want to make
streets safer, including school zones,
but place no hurdles on themselves
when they want to make it easier
for vehicles to move fast and with
minimal delay. Demand that they
abide by existing reports and studies
that instruct the city how to make
our streets safer and our
town more fi nancially
productive. And when
they tell you that they
do prioritize safety, ask
them how they found
money to install new
turn lanes, including
one to a movie theater
that never got built,
but they can’t fi nd money to create
safe pedestrian crossings along busy
streets. Ask them why they can fi nd
money to make the intersections
bigger, such as Lockhaven Drive by
McLeod Lane and Keizer Station,
but can’t automatically incorporate
traffi c calming techniques during
street projects.
There are also things that we
can do to make our streets safer
that don’t require the city to spend
money. If you can, park a vehicle
on the street in front of your house.
Cars drive slower when the travel
lane is narrower. Walk your child
to school instead of driving. If you
must drive, park your car a block
or two away and walk the rest of
the way instead of idling right in
front of the building and creating
a traffi c jam. Speaking of schools,
demand the Salem-Keizer School
District prioritize Safe Routes to
Schools, provide safe, secure and
suffi cient bike parking at all schools
guest
opinion
and dissuade high school students
from driving. Look at the Cherri-
ots routes and see if you can take
the bus to work because it reduces
traffi c.
Keizer must decide if it wants
River Road to emphasize moving
cars or focus on safely connecting
people with places, regardless of
their method of transportation. It
cannot do both. The paradox is that
by making our streets safer for pe-
destrians and bicyclists we will their
increase numbers, which will make
streets safer for drivers and will both
save money and make more mon-
ey for the city. Keizer overall has a
walkability score of 35 (out of 100).
A recent study (the socioecological
psychology of upward social mobil-
ity) found that residents in walkable
cities are less car dependent which
signifi cantly reduced a barrier to
upward mobility. It also found that
people living in more walkable
neighborhoods felt a greater sense
of belonging to their communities.
We will see our police spending less
time patrolling for speeders, fewer
collisions that cost us as drivers and
taxpayers and a better “return on
investment” for the city because we
have lower infrastructure costs and
higher property values.
Keeping River Road (Lockhav-
en Drive, Cherry Avenue and all
our other streets) as it is, it will re-
main unsafe, it will not be Keizer’s
“Main Street” and will be a barrier
dividing our city. And when Keiz-
er declines fi nancially and socially,
it will be partially because of this.
How could we expect Keizer to
be beautiful and prosper, when we
choose ugly?
(Michael DeBlasi lives in Keizer.)
Sidewalks in every neighborhood?
Via social media, the Keizertimes
asked readers: should the City of
Keizer assure every neighborhood
has sidewalks?
Here are selected responses:
That’s a great goal to try and
achieve. I would like to see busier
roads with churches and schools
on them (I’m thinking of
Cummings Lane) be the
fi rst to get sidewalks as
it’s a risk to have our chil-
dren walking to and from
school without a designat-
ed pedestrian walkway.
—Lindsay McElroy
In some areas where
there is a lot of foot traffi c
sure, but overall I think there is more
important needs than sidewalks.
—Karisa Patton
(The) Thorman Avenue area
needs sidewalks. There’s kids walk-
ing around the area during day/
night and there is no sidewalk on
either side.
—Kelsey Coons
I think priority should be giv-
en to existing sidewalks that are in
horrifi c state of repair. The neigh-
borhoods built in the 1950s-1960s
with old walks are a major tripping
hazard. I know by experience. The
problem is that the cost to repair for
the homeowner is not affordable for
most. We could just redo the drive-
way; another $6,000 for the side-
walk. So it’s still a mess. Be careful
out there, walkers.
—Kathy Mathena Baier
Sidewalks
and
sidewalk ramps for
wheelchairs
and
strollers. I’m more for
the ramps on exist-
ing sidewalks than for
more sidewalks.
—April Moine
Depends on how
much the homeown-
ers are charged for them!
—Terri Kridelbaugh La Masa
While this is a good idea in prin-
ciple, it’s not a practical solution.
Due to some physical limitations
doing so would mean removal of
homeowner’s yards, especially if they
put green space between the street
and the sidewalk. Personally I think
that green space between sidewalk
and street is a waste of land.
—Nigel Guisinger
Cummings should be a high pri-
what’s
your
view?
Keizertimes
Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303
phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com
EDITOR & PUBLISHER
Lyndon Zaitz
publisher@keizertimes.com
2019-2020 President
Oregon Newspaper Publishers
Association
POSTMASTER
Send address changes to:
Keizertimes Circulation
142 Chemawa Road N.
Keizer, OR 97303
Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon
SUBSCRIPTIONS
One year:
$35 in Marion County,
$43 outside Marion County,
$55 outside Oregon
PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY
Publication No: USPS 679-430
ority.
—Lisa Quinlin Zacharias
I think there should be some fo-
cus on installing speed humps from
the retirement home to the round-
about on Chemawa Road. This road
is treated like a highway. We have
already had someone speed by and
kill one of our dogs without stop-
ping. What’s next, a kid? This should
defi nitely be addressed.
—Josh Styles
Not if the homeowners have to
pay for them.
—Cheryl Houghton Young
Do I need to give up part of my
yard. Do I get compensation for it ?
—Christopher Rhoads
Sidewalks with no basketball hoops
blocking them, would be nice.
—LeAnne DeCarlo-Roberts
When we fi rst started looking
for houses I made sure we looked
at houses in neighborhoods with
sidewalks. That was a big deal to me
as a homeowner and parent. I didn’t
want to live somewhere that didn’t
have sidewalks for my family to use.
Walking in the street is so danger-
ous.
—Shannon Stein Sanchez
We need a blinking lights at the
crosswalk of Parkmeadow Loop
and Wheatland Road! Nobody
ever stops for the kids waiting
to cross. And the cars are always
going at least 45mph! There’s so
many kiddos that cross there ev-
eryday.
—Rylee Ogden
Claggett Street needs speed
bumps or something to slow
down traffi c. It’s used as a cutoff
from River Road to Chemawa
and people drive extremely fast.
With the addition of 10 new
homes, more traffi c is coming. I
think the speed issue is more im-
portant than sidewalks.
—Naomi Rodriguez
Capitol exhibit is memorial to
Holocaust survivors, liberators
Selected archives of the Ore-
gon Jewish Museum and Center
for Holocaust Education, including
testimonies from soldiers, liberators
and survivors will be on display at
the Oregon State Capitol Galleria
through Thursday, Nov. 28.
The exhibit is part of the Capi-
tol History Gateway project spon-
sored by the Oregon State Capitol
Foundation. It is supplemented by
a display from the Salem Veterans of
Foreign Wars 661 Uniform Display
Museum highlighting seven service
uniforms worn by Jewish soldiers in
World War II.
The free exhibit is open from 8
a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Fri-
day. For more information visit ore-
goncapitol.com.
cuffed
in Keizer
Austin
Danial Martinez
Christopher
Llewellyn Gilpin
Arrested Oct. 28 for:
Assault
Previous convictions:
Assault, harassment,
recklessly endangering
another person, careless
driving, criminal mischief
Arrested Nov. 1 for:
Encouraging child sex
abuse
Past convictions:
None
Kari Lynn Martin
Arrested Oct. 29 for:
Forgery
Other pending charges:
Forgery, drug possession,
theft
James Brian Tidwell
Arrested Nov. 2 for:
Felon in possession of a
weapon
Quincy Lee Smart
Arrested Oct. 30 for:
Theft
Other pending charges:
Theft (multiple counts),
assault
Past convictions:
Drug delivery, burglary,
drug possession
Mario Hernandez-
Gonzalez
Arrested Oct. 31 for:
Unlawful possession of
a fi rearm
Other pending
charges:
Unauthorized use of
a motor vehicle, theft,
drug possession
David Ramsdell
Arrested Nov. 3 for:
Interference with making
a report
Past convictions:
Computer crime, drug
possession, theft
police scanner
MONDAY, OCTOBER 28
11:38 a.m. - Arrest for probation viola-
tion in the 3000 block of River Road N.
5 p.m. - Violation of release agreement in
the 800 block of Foothill Court NE.
10:44 p.m. - Arrest for minor in posses-
sion and driving under the infl uence at
the intersection of Trail Avenue NE and
Mandarin Street NE.
11:05 a.m. - Traffi c accident in the 500
block of Chemawa Road N.
11:25 a.m. - Arrest for unlawful posses-
sion of methamphetamine, unlawful pos-
session of fi rearm and warrant served at
the intersection of Cherry Avenue NE.
and Alder Drive NE.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29
11:06 a.m. - Traffi c accident at the inter-
section of Keizer Station Boulevard NE
and Ulali Drive NE.
12:50 p.m. - Arrest for warrant served in
the 5000 block of River Road N.
4:34 p.m. - Traffi c accident in the 5000
block of River Road N.
4:51 p.m. - Identity theft in the 1000
block of Bent Grass Court NE.
4:53 p.m. - Traffi c accident at the inter-
section of River Road N. and Sam Or-
cutt Way NE.
5 p.m. - Vandalism in the 5000 block of
4th Place N.
5:20 p.m. - Shoplifting and criminal tres-
passing in the 4000 block of River Road.
10:42 p.m. - Arrest for warrant served in
the 4000 block of 19th Place NE.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30
9:35 a.m. - Warrant served in the 4000
block of Cherry Avenue NE.
11:31 a.m. - Criminal trespassing in the
5000 block of River Road N.
2:20 p.m. - Traffi c accident at the inter-
section of River Road N. and Claggett
Street NE.
4:09 p.m. - Drugs in the 6000 block of
Birchwood Court N.
4:41 p.m. - Traffi c accident in the 7000
block of Camden Street NE.
5:03 p.m. - Criminal trespassing in the
200 block of Evans Avenue N.
5:15 p.m. - Identity theft and forgery in
the 3000 block of River Road N.
6:07 p.m. - Physical harassment in the
4000 block of Tiffany Place NE.
8 p.m. - Theft in the 4000 block of River
Road N.
9:40 p.m. - Failure to perform duties of
driver to injured persons in the 3000
block of River Road N.
10:50 p.m. - Arrest for warrant served in
the 700 block of Claggett Street NE.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31
1:23 a.m. - Arrest for warrant served and
unlawful possession of heroin in the 700
block of Claggett Street NE.
9:24 a.m. - Arrest for underage marijuana
possession in the 500 block of Chemawa
Road N.
Sam Goesch
Ins Agcy Inc
Sam Goesch CLU, Agent
3975 River Road North
Keizer, OR 97303
Bus: 503-393-6252
State Farm , Bloomington, IL
1211999