Planning director to meet with concerned citizens

Eric Porter, the new Planning and Community Development Director, will meet with the development community on Thursday, October 11, at 8 a.m. at Sisters City Hall.

The city's response to the concerns of area developers by scheduling a timely meeting has pleased many of those who are critical of past city performance.

The meeting is a further follow-up in the city's response to a concerned group of 64 citizens who expressed worries about city operations earlier in the summer. The focus of the meeting will center on the concerns of the development community and will be facilitated by Mayor Brad Boyd.

Porter is heading to the firing line almost as soon as he gets in the door at City Hall. Porter's first day on the job was Monday, September 24.

Porter is committed to opening the channels of communication and wants to incorporate community involvement in the workings of the city. Community involvement is seen as critical to prevent adversarial rolls between the city and the community.

"What I want to do is talk to some of the people who have concerns about the department and get their take on how exactly it might be improved. I suspect that the people who are concerned about it have had encounters with the department at some point and they may have some observations of how it may function more efficiently. My goal is to make it is as efficient as possible, given the staffing and workload," Porter said.

Some see the scheduled meeting as a serious effort to make some changes and open avenues of communication.

"I think that this is a start and if we can open communications then things will work out. I just hope that the city is open to our opinions and that this can become a meeting that we can have more often, maybe even once a quarter. If we could do that, then things wouldn't tend to get out of hand," said Curt Kallberg, a Sisters developer.

There are still some worries about whether or not the meeting will address all concerns and lead to changes.

"I am glad that the city is going to move forward with the meeting," said Jim Bell, a local developer. "We have hope that this will solve some of the problems, but not everything that was a concern with the people that came to the meeting had to do with development and too many people wrote the meeting off as just the concerns of the developers and contractors. I would like to see the other issues addressed as well."

A request was made for the city to conduct a confidential survey of its employees to determine the morale and perceived working conditions at City Hall. Also requested was a survey of employees that have departed the city in the last year to try to determine the contributing reasons for their departure.

The city council and city management have remained silent on these two points.

The public is invited to attend the October 11 meeting.