Let the people park

The City of Sisters and the Deschutes Public Library District should open up the unfinished parking lot at the new public facility campus at the corner of Locust Street and Highway 20 now.

There has been a weeks-long holdup while the library, city and school district try to figure out who will be responsible for re-grading the gravel lot next spring. Meanwhile, Sisters has been blanketed in snow and school district employees have to trudge through it across Locust Street to get to work in their new administration building.

This is silly.

Anyone who has a gravel driveway knows that the surface will get chewed up by the freeze-thaw cycle and by runoff regardless of whether anyone parks on it. Plowing snow on the surface can’t make thing much worse — and the city has already agreed to be responsible if plows chip up the curbs.

If the library wants to leave its portion of the lot idle, that’s fine. There’s plenty of parking on the street just a few feet from the front door of the wonderful new building.

But the school district employees are stuck with a long trudge over broken ground. They should have better access to their workplace.

The lot will have to be re-graded next spring before it’s paved. Somebody will have to pay for it. Open it up while you work out the responsibility. It shouldn’t be the problem of the people who work in the school district building.

Jim Cornelius, News Editor