Sweet Home City Council candidate Walt Volkers is running for much the same reason he ran and served on the council in the 1980s, because the council was hardly listening to the people.
The council was “hardly listening to the people,” Volkers said. “The people need to be listened to. They are the city.”
When he joined the council, “I listened to them,” Volkers said. “Now, they don’t.”
Volkers said that a councilman or a planning commissioner had said that they don’t need to listen to the people but had to worry about the city.
“You’ve got to have the best interest of the city,” Volkers said. “But the people are the city. It’s not the council’s money. It’s the city’s.”
As an example, Volkers pointed to the current proposal by Linn County Affordable Housing to put a planned unit development at the south end of Sunset Lane. The proposal, including 10 rental units for low-income seniors and disabled persons and 13 single-family homes that will be sold, has drawn strong opposition from neighbors.
“I don’t think they did a complete enough study on it,” Volkers said. The water and sewer systems in the area are some 40 years old. “I think that’s the wrong place for it. People don’t want it. They’ve got their life investment up there, and property values are going to go down.”
The city has a lot of open land elsewhere, Volkers said. Referring to the infrastructure in the area, “when they put that in, it’s going to be nothing by trouble. To me it doesn’t seem like the right place for this. It’s already crowded up there.”
Volkers thinks the city can make improvements in a number of different areas.
He calls for law enforcement patrols in the residential areas, claiming that areas north of Nandina Street and South of Long Street do not get enough police patrols.
There are more than just drunken drivers on Main Street to look for, Volkers said. “I think we need more officers out there on drugs (investigations) than in parking lots watching bars. They can assign one with traffic and look for drunk drivers. I don’t like drunk drivers either.”
“When I was on the council before, we agreed that we would hire only experienced officers,” Volkers said. There would be no more rookies, who come to Sweet Home, receive training and certification and are gone in six months. He does not blame the “young guys,” but “we need experienced officers.”
Pointing to the attempted murder of a police officer late last month, in which a special response team responded from elsewhere, Volkers said, “we need a special response team within our own police department.”
With the sale of Sweet Home Sanitation, Volkers said, “I think we need to go over their franchise. The prices are getting out of hand.… Things cost more. I understand this.”
Instead of allowing rates to go up, the council should look elsewhere, advertise out, for other garbage services, Volkers said.
The water and sewer prices should not have been raised in July like they were, Volkers said. That should have been done over a period of several years.
“It’s hard on people,” Volkers said. He pointed to those on social security, who, when they receive an increase, end up spending it on Medicare, making it difficult for them to cover the costs of increasing rates in sewer, water or garbage.
Volkers would like to see a city bus service to provide access to local businesses.
“I’m sure they’ve got some money in the budget somewhere,” Volkers said. When the city needs money for other things, it always seems to find it somewhere.
With public and traffic safety, Volkers said there are several places where stop signs are needed and speed limits need to be dropped. In front of the high school, the speed limit is 20 mph all day, but out by Hawthorne School, traffic travels at 30 to 35 mph.
In economic development, “a lot of people think Sweet Home is a retirement (community),” Volkers said. “we’re not a retirement (community). There’s a lot around the lake that can be developed.”
Foster Lake does not need a marina with the resulting pollutants on the lake, but it does need more development, a large hotel, for example, near the turnoff to the dam. The hotel should include a nice restaurant with a lounge overlooking the lake. Such a development would give anglers a place to stay.
“I’d like to see the boat races come back,” Volkers said. “And I’d like to do something about getting the mud flat races back here.”
The decision during the summer to end the annual Foster Mud Flat races was all politics, Volkers said. “It was formed here in Sweet Home and should be allowed.”
The South Santiam Four-Wheelers Association did a good job of keeping the Foster Mud Flat in the east end of the lake clean each January, Volkers said. “I think the Corps of Engineers, when they did their study, didn’t do it right. They just don’t care about the local economy, but this is our city not the Corps of Engineers’”
“If I’m in there, I will listen to the public,” Volkers said. He does not care if meetings last from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. so the public is heard. “I will do my best to get it done.… Our citizens come first because they are the city.”
Those citizens work hard all their lives and worry about their families and property, Volkers said. “They feel the city’s not listening to them.”
Volkers believes the way to make the city listen to its people is to change the charter and have an elected mayor, something he would like to pursue if elected.
“He’s the boss, and it all falls on his shoulders,” Volkers said. “Everyone will answer to the mayor.… It’ll be done right.… It’s time to get the city up and going. This is the 21st century.”
Related to listening to the people, Volkers said the city manager should spend more time out talking to people. Sixty percent of his job, as well as the police chief’s, should be public relations, talking to the people, with a police officer sent into local businesses to become familiar with business owners.
Volkers spent about eight years on the city council during the 1980s. He owned the Old Lamplighter restaurant and is now a semi-retired bartender and chef. He works with his brother, Frontier Lounge owner Ed Volkers.
He moved to Sweet Home in 1962 at about the age of 18 after his brother moved to Sweet Home. He stayed for a couple of years before moving back to Yuma, Ariz., where he managed a Burger Chef, now Hardy’s or Carl’s Junior restaurants, and attended Arizona Western College, a junior college. He was drafted into the Army and later settled in Tulare, Calif., in the Fresno area. There he was a police officer for more than 10 years before going to work in animal control and later moving back to Sweet Home.
“To me it’s home,” Volkers said. “I always liked it. My brother was here, and I liked it better. Sweet Home is just sweet home. It’s home.”