The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

To the Editor:

I am an avid reader of letters to the editor in this paper, as well as other towns I visit. This section of the paper yields meaningful insight as to the character of the community as well as their wants and needs. The information gleaned from a few paragraphs and the follow-up responses paint a picture of the community’s feelings on a variety of subjects.

The shortcomings that I find in almost all these letters are they address problems but lack solutions to those problems.

Obviously, here in Sisters there is no scarcity of problems or opinions. Within the last four months there have been several editorials and letters to the editor regarding the proposed construction of the Dollar General Store and its adjoining development of multi-housing and more unneeded shops and restaurants. When my wife and I moved to Sisters about six months ago the population was estimated at 2,500.

A wild guess on my part is the 2020 census will show it closer to 4,500; this is not what we moved here for. So I’ll cut to the chase with a suggestion that could lead to a possible solution to our current problem. The City buys the subject land from its current owner at fair market value. That land is then re-zoned to agricultural or whatever zoning is required to grow Christmas trees (see page 32, last week’s Nugget article “Tree supply is tight”).

The procured land could be leased to a tree grower or the City itself takes on the task of “how hard could it be to grow Christmas trees?” OK, it’s out-of-the-box thinking, but that’s what it takes to win over Big Business. Stop wasting your time blaming current City management, their hands are somewhat tied due to existing zoning having been approved years ago. Each and every person that is against this “urban sprawl” needs to get involved in preventing it from going any further or at least help slow it down.

Don’t wait to see what happens, be what happens.

Terry Coultas