News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sisters has never had any trouble luring people to relocate here. But the city is lacking some of the key elements it needs to attract light industrial businesses with family-wage jobs: “shovel-ready” land and tax incentives.
“We’re not in the position to play the economicdevelopment game that other communities in Central Oregon have,” City Manager Eileen Stein told The Nugget.
Roger Lee of Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO) met with city councilors and staff Thursday morning to discuss the possibilities for Sisters to create or join an “enterprise zone.”
“It’s very conceptual,” Stein said.
She described the discussion as “eye opening.” Sisters could “amend into” Redmond’s enterprise zone.
If Sisters wanted to join with Redmond, Sisters would probably have to offer an identical incentive package, which would include tax breaks and waivers of Systems Development Charges (SDC).
An SDC waiver would be difficult to accommodate because the City Charter requires charging the maximum allowable SDC for water, streets and sewer.
Stein said the city could afford to offer the incentives businesses expect to receive to relocate to a new community.
“Whether it’s worthwhile or not is question for the council,” she said.
She said there is ongoing interest in Sisters in attracting one or two fairly large new manufacturers and other smaller businesses.
“The desire to have a year-round economy and not be so dependent on a tourist economy is still there,” she said. “If we filled up our existing Industrial Park with (businesses like) Ponderosa Forge, Swiss Mountain Log Homes, a Multnomah, another Weitech, that would be fine.”
Stein said Sisters could benefit from sprucing up the existing Industrial Park to make it more attractive to potential relocators.
She said Roger Lee has shown the park to businesses such as a sporting goods manufacturer, an animation company and other specialty manufacturers.
Apparently they were turned off by the appearance of the park.
Stein said she is “intrigued by Dutch Pacific,” a group of investors represented in Sisters by Shane Lundgren and consultant Steve McGhehey. Dutch Pacific owns the 35 acres including Conklin’s Guest House at the east end of the Industrial Park.
McGhehey has described plans for a variety of uses on the property mixing some residential and some commercial activities along with converting Conklin’s into a destination lodging and conference site.
Stein did not expect immediate action, but economic development remains an area of interest to the council.
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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