News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sweltering in the summer evening heat at the July 11 council meeting, City Recorder Bernadette Sorensen said, "If we are not going to be moving soon, can we do something so we can work?"
Sorensen said the staff has no place to store records, that the building, even early in the morning, is uncomfortably hot in summer.
Police secretary Pat Davis addressed the council bluntly, after the council tabled action on approval of the final plans to renovate the new city hall.
"Frankly," she said, "I'm upset that we can't go forward with this. It is getting really frustrating working here. This has gone on too long. Trust the people who came up with the plans. I encourage you to move forward quickly."
If there are more delays on the new city hall, Sorensen said, "can we at least do something to make this (old city hall) workable?" She asked for swamp coolers and shelving.
The council approved her request for coolers, but action on the plans remained tabled.
Last winter the council approved architectural drawings for the renovation of the old Memory Lanes bowling alley on Adams Street, a building donated to the city for use as a city hall. City Administrator Barbara Warren sent the plans on to Mortier Engineering of Coos Bay, engineering consultants to the city. The firm returned the finished plans to the city in June.
City Councilor Gary Miller made the motion to table approval of the plans; he said he had just received his set of plans and had not been able to review them. Miller said there may be ways to save money, like installing "movable walls...take a modular approach."
Mayor Dave Moyer said he did not understand why an elevated floor now in the building is being lowered, according to the Mortier plans. He said the plans the council submitted to Mortier did not show the "dropped floor."
In a related matter, the council approved a resolution authorizing the city administrator to start the process of declaring the old city hall as surplus and proceed toward offering it for sale. Mayor Moyer and Councilor Miller both opposed declaring the building surplus, saying there may be uses for the property. City Attorney Gokey assured the council the resolution simply gets the process going, suggesting the matter was not necessarily closed.
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