Small Cities
Grateful to County
We city managers or administrators want to take this opportunity to thank the county commissioners for meeting their commitment to Lane County’s cities by meeting their self-imposed deadline of June 30 for the adoption of a coordinated population forecast. Specifically, Commissioner Bill Fleenor made the motion and the commissioners voted unanimously to approve it. Commissioner Faye Stewart was also instrumental in providing the last-minute changes to the forecast that allowed the city of Coburg to get some relief as well.
Many of you have been watching with various levels of interest and noninterest as this two-plus year process unfolded. Probably most were wondering what all the fuss was about. For the cities of Lane County, this is a crucial process that allows us to do proper planning by not oversizing or undersizing the massive infrastructure investments we make on streets, parks, water, sewer, and stormwater. By having reasonably accurate population forecasts, our cities are able to keep taxpayer expenditures to a minimum to meet the growing impacts on our systems from growing populations.
Over these past two years, the cities have worked with and at times wrestled with the county to have our needs recognized. To their credit, they listened and brought us to the table as partners in this overall effort to make Lane County a better place to live for us all. They certainly deserve a thank-you for keeping their promise to bring this often very complicated and consternating process to a timely close.
Mark Shrives, Creswel
David Clyne, Junction City
Gordon Zimmerman,Oakridge
Ric Ingham, Veneta