Letters to the Editor 07/11/2012

To the Editor:

How much does Sisters really care about its history?

Once again the community of Sisters is facing the destruction of one of its historic buildings. The Oregon Department of Forestry building, across the street from the new fire hall, is in imminent peril. The state wants to sell the building and land and it is an almost-certainty the building will be torn down, once sold. Some have even talked about turning it into a parking lot!

A private citizen rescued the old house on the fire department's land, but had to move the house to save it, thus destroying its historic value from the point of view of ever receiving nationally recognized historic designation. Maybe someone will step forward again, but that is unlikely due to the cost of moving a building and then bringing it up to code for public access, especially ADA requirements.

Sisters Country Historical Society saved the old library building. Speaking as the point-person on that job, it was a mammoth effort and possible partly because economic times were good.

Do you want to sit back and lose another building? We have very few historic buildings that haven't been moved and retain their historic structure. Are we going to let this one go?

Would two or three retired people step forward and dedicate their time and effort to finding a useful purpose for the building (maybe the long-desired senior center) and work to raise the funds to purchase, restore and maintain it?

Send me your thoughts and let me know if anyone will actually put some effort into this situation.

Jean Nave, President, Sisters Country Historical Society 

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To the Editor:

It takes courage to make a decision. It takes more courage to admit that the decision was wrong.

Fifteen years ago, the Sisters School Board attempted to move toward a year-round school calendar. There was solid evidence that this was producing substantially greater learning in Europe and Asia.

Unfortunately, a good idea in the abstract turned out to be a bad idea in reality. The different calendar was wreaking havoc on all the sports and co-curricular programs and creating hardships on working-class families with fewer daycare options.

By the time I got on the school board 13 years ago, we were already taking steps to move back toward a regular calendar in light of these problems.

Similarly, our city council was presented with a clever idea that perhaps has worked in some other parts of the world: Back-in parking. We have now completed the reconfiguration of Main Avenue, and the result has been chaos. It is almost comical to see cars parked every which way.

It's bad enough that our citizens hate this idea. What is worse is the likely effect on our tourist industry and our town.

Backwards parking is not going to make our town user-friendly. There will be a fair number of visitors who will either be frustrated or confused and decide it is just not worth it. It is far too easy to drive to the next town and stop somewhere else. We will be discouraging people from even stopping here.

I implore the city council to be brave. It's not easy to change your mind and turn down funding. But when this town elected each of you, it was probably with the hope that you would exercise an open mind and adapt to changing situations. The future of our town is at stake.

Glen Lasken