News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
A group of Sisters-area residents are debating the location of a proposed community center.
They are racing to convince the Sisters City Council to apply for a $600,000 grant by Friday, April 10. The council was to decide Tuesday, April 7, whether to apply for the Community Development Block Grant, which must be administered by a government entity.
The council has hesitated to request the grant; some councilors are not satisfied with the proposed site.
Carole C.B. Davis, one of a five-person committee working on the project, told the city council in an emergency hearing Wednesday, April 1, that the group wants to site the center on approximately 15 acres just west of Sisters High School.
That land is currently zoned as forest land and lies outside the Sisters Urban Growth Boundary.
Councilor Tim Clasen and Mayor Steve Wilson indicated that they would rather see the facility located inside the city limits, especially since the grant proposal is based in part on the needs of city residents.
"I feel a community center belongs in the community," Clasen said. "Sisters doesn't have much. We've got a couple of little parks, we don't have a lot to offer the people who live in the city."
Clasen also questioned whether the community center committee was prepared to get the urban growth boundary extended, get a zone change on the property west of the school and go through the electoral process to get water service extended to the site.
Developer Ted Eady has offered 1.5 acres on his Barclay Ranch property for a community center, in addition to four acres of drainfield for playing fields. Eady has indicated a willingness to offer more land if needed. The Eady site would be part of a park the developer hopes to donate to the city.
The Eady site is inside the urban growth boundry, but outside the city limits. Voters would have to approve the extension of water services to that site as well.
Eady argued that building the center on the site next to the high school "is basically sprawl." He also argued that the site is too remote from town, which would discourage use.
But center advocates said the school site offers the room they need. Their plan is for a 7,920 square-foot building that would house SOAR, the Central Oregon Battering and Rape Alliance, the Family Access Network, a teen center, a senior center and meal site and other functions.
Plans call for a large room for community events, and outdoor playgrounds and fields that could be used in conjunction with the schools.
"A city block (the rough size of the Eady site) seems like a lot," said SOAR coordinator and community center advocate Tom Coffield. "But once you put in a parking lot, a future pool, a building, things like that, it gets used up."
However, seniors told the council they want their own senior center, not one that is part of another facility.
"There's a lot of us that enjoy getting together and we'd like to do it in peace - no little ones running around," Weibi Marcouz told the council.
Another senior, Suzanne Meyer, said, "I can guarantee you the seniors will not be interested in listening to the teenagers' music and the little kids are not going to want to be tripping over the old folks."
The seniors also expressed concern about locating the center outside of town.
Davis noted that her group, which also includes Colin Adams, Lori Craig and Tom Worcester, originally sought to find a site inside the city limits, but none proved suitable.
"We feel we've exhausted every possibility, but there may be a sleeper out there and we haven't thought about it," she said.
Schools Superintendent Steve Swisher suggested a possible "sleeper" to the committee after the April 1 meeting. He suggested that the center building could be sited on school property - within the urban growth boundry. Then it would require only a conditional use permit to put the facility's fields on the forest land west of the school.
The council continued the hearing to Tuesday, April 7, to allow the community to address some of the concerns raised in the meeting.
According to Davis and Adams, the group decided to list the characteristics of the possible sites and let the city decide where they want the center.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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