In the late 1960s, longtime residents recall, Sweet Home was a hot spot in the state.
Green Peter and Foster dams were under construction. Local neighborhoods housed engineers, contractors, construction supervisors and workers and their families. Local businesses cashed in as subcontractors at the worksites. Local schools swelled with children who moved in with their families. Stores and businesses flourished from the commerce brought about by the newcomers.
Highways, water and sewer lines, and other infrastructure was improved. Schools, service clubs and churches were full. In a community smaller than it is now there were recreational city-league sports – including football – and one resident told us “our square dance group was packed.”
Meanwhile, the log trucks still hauled timber out of the forests and the mills still cranked out lumber and plywood.
It was a good time.
Then, of course, the dams were completed and most of those folks moved on, although a few stayed because they’d grown fond of Sweet Home.
What if that were to happen again, albeit on a slightly smaller scale – except more permanently?
The news on page 1 of today’s issue, that local developers Phil Ordway and Troy Cummins are pulling their 311-acre project out of cold storage with a new twist is good for them – and for Sweet Home.
Cummins and Ordway want to lure one or more high-tech firms to our community because we have a lot to offer such an enterprise.
There’s been a lot of discussion – and, seemingly, growing interest – in our community in recent years about cashing in on the potential for outdoor recreation-related business enterprises and creating an environment where such entrepreneurial efforts could thrive. The Livability Initiative, which is the focus of the Share Fair on Tuesday of this week and the all-day task force meeting Wednesday, is all about that. And more.
But there’s always been this footnote: Recreation would only be one piece of the puzzle. We still have a forest-products industry, which is still vital to us. And a recurring theme over the years has been how we need to find other industry. All that is part of the Livability Initiative as well.
Well, what Ordway and Cummins are talking about is exactly the kind of thing that might be a slam dunk for them and for the community.
We’ve said it before, but it’s worth reminding ourselves: Longtime residents of Sweet Home may find it easy to forget what we’ve got here. Anyone who has inched along in traffic in a major city – which people do every morning and every night in the Bay Area, in Los Angeles, in Portland, in Phoenix, in Seattle, etc. knows what we’re talking about. They creep along, alert for the next display of brake lights, listening to radio talk show hosts or music from the latest technological gadget or chatting on their cellphone (hopefully hands-free), watching the billboards and dust- or rust-covered (depending on where they live) facades slide slowly by, glancing at their dashboard clocks, wondering if they should change lanes – all of this for an hour, two hours a day or more.
Hmmm. What if one could wake up in a well-appointed home on a cul-de-sac overshadowed by tall firs, walk or bike half a mile or so to one’s job at a modern, high-tech facility housing the firm you work for, which creates (a) security systems for on-line banking and credit card transactions, (b) phone apps that allow video gamers to instantly track the progress of various games in which they are participating, or (c) parts for large cellphone manufacturers. Yeah, we made that list up, but this is the type of thing we’re talking about.
Meanwhile, one’s kids head off to schools, which have increased staff and programs to accommodate the increase in students brought about by new residents. These people think kids should be learning music and art in the elementary grades and want expanded opportunities at the junior high and high school levels. They are willing to do what it takes to make that come about.
Older students at the high school take advantage of increased advanced-placement class offerings, compete on athletic teams that have moved up to the 5A Division (due to increased enrollment), and participate in the newly established Robotics Club.
OK, so we just made most of that up too. But the basic thrust we’re suggesting is not unrealistic.
Ordway and Cummins aren’t fantasizing when they say companies are seeking to relocate away from where rents are $6,000 a month for a two-bedroom hole-in-the-wall, where public schools are inferior, where public recreation is inadequate, where people sit in traffic for hours each week when they could be working or home with their families. What company in that spot wouldn’t be interested in a community that offers (a) tall trees, a river flowing by and lakes and ponds within easy walking or biking distance; (b) residents eager to work for a lot less than it would cost to hire people in the Bay Area; (c) several colleges and universities within an hour’s drive that could produce the intellectual and skilled labor that might not be available within a 10-mile radius; (d) recreation galore; (e) relatively short drives to airports for necessary travel; (f) a four-lane highway linking the forested tech campus with faster-paced civilization; etc. We could go on.
The benefit to us? Hopefully, people who would help our community in many ways by living here: demand for goods and services that would result in more businesses moving into or opening in the community, more resources for arts, recreation and other activities, more revenue to improve infrastructure, and most importantly, jobs that might provide younger generations with reason to stay or return.
Sweet Home needs to pay attention when Ordway and Cummins ask for our cooperation. A lot has happened lately that is putting our community in the spotlight – the Governor’s Solution Team that has developed an agreement among a multitude of agencies to work toward boosting tourism and local wood products industry with a community forest east of Sweet Home, the Livability Initiative, work in the Quartzville area to improve camping and transportation, and the Sweet Home Economic Development Group’s effort to acquire the former Knife River property as a park and event facility.
Some things need to happen to make this work. Prospective employers need to see our community lined up with the county and the state to do what it takes to make this happen in a way that’s a win-win for all parties. Buy-in from local major universities will be helpful.
We need to be prepared to put on our best face for prospective takers of this deal. The developers say that most of the nitty-gritty concessions would need to take place in the capital. We just need to show that we’re enthusiastic about the prospect of new employer(s) coming to town.
The picture looks pretty good to us. Yes, it may mean a bit of a departure from what Sweet Home has historically been, but having an economy based on multiple industries would put us in a place we’ve never been. If this happens, there will be new faces in town and new ideas. But we think the potential newcomers could bring a lot to a town that already has been given a lot of opportunities.
This is just one more piece of the puzzle, one more chance to get ahead.