Sean C. Morgan
City of Sweet Home Community Development Director Carol Lewis is retiring effective July 31, after 18 years in Sweet Home, primarily as the city’s planner, though she’s not walking away – yet.
City Manager Craig Martin is moving the functions of the department to other departments for now, he said. For the next year, Lewis and her husband, Terry, working as TCL Planning Consultants, have contracted for professional services for planning and to complete projects already underway, including the Hobart management plan and the community Strategic Plan. Afterward, he will decide what to do with the department. For now, code enforcement is moving to the Police Department. Parks and building are moving to Public Works.
Lewis has lived in the Crawfordsville area for 24 years. She went to work for Sweet Home in March 1995 after working three years as a planner in Toledo.
She was hired as a half-time planner and a half-time code enforcement officer as part of the city manager’s executive department.
That job has changed a lot since then, Lewis said. Soon after she went to work in Sweet Home, developments started taking off following a slump. She had little time for code enforcement, and the city added a new code enforcement position.
She became director of the Community Development Department when it was created around 2004. The new department took over parks and the building program.
Lewis is planning “to go home,” she said. She isn’t planning any trips. She’ll go home, “catch up, spend more time with Mom, spend more time with Terry, go back to doing crafts I haven’t had the time or energy to do for years.”
“Carol always likes to look forward and plan for future years rather than planning only for the present,” said City Councilor Craig Fentiman, kicking off a reception for Lewis Friday at Sankey Park.
City Manager Craig Martin said it was his privilege and honor to work with Lewis for the past 16 years.
“I’ve truly appreciated Carol’s dedication and commitment to this job and her community,” Martin said. “What you see in this community speaks volumes about Carol and what she wanted to do, which was to help people accomplish their dreams.”
Even when Planning Commission decisions didn’t go their way, people have always appreciated how Lewis worked with them, trying to find a way to do what they want to do, Martin said. He pulled out a copy of a 1995 city newsletter that highlighted Lewis after the city hired her.
“I became a planner because it allows me to help people achieve their goals while achieving the goals of the community at large,” she said in the newsletter. Having lived in the community during the previous six years, “I’ve watched Sweet Home change, and now I can be part of that.”
“For 18 years of service, I just want to say, thank you,” Martin said. “The community has truly benefited.”
The reception on Friday was held at the location of an old wading pool. During the city’s Summer Recreation program, which Lewis supervised, Sweet Home children decorated stones, which were arranged in two concentric rings around a tree. During the reception Friday, the city dedicated the tree to Lewis in recognition of her planning efforts, which always were concerned with what will be left behind for the children.
“There’s a lot of potential in your community as long as you keep working toward it,” Lewis said. “We have some pretty special amenities here, the natural resources.”
“When I became a planner, my real focus was public policy,” Lewis told The New Era. She wanted to be a guerrilla in the workplace and make positive changes from inside the system instead of fighting it from outside.
“I love working with people and getting them where they want to go,” Lewis said. They have property they want to develop, and she wanted to be able to help them get as close as possible to their dream while still meeting the rules.
Lewis holds master’s degrees in urban and regional planning and in public policy from the University of Oregon. The university waived her undergraduate requirements because of her life experiences. She had studied business management at Linfield College.
Her first planning job was in Toledo. Prior to that, she was involved in citizen involvement committees in Douglas County. The committees advised the Planning Commission in specific geographical areas. She was in the coastal area.
Lewis married Terry in 1989 and moved to the Sweet Home area. Terry Lewis has the same planning degree she does. He worked as a college professor for 30 years, as a planner in Lebanon and Corvallis and with the Council of Governments as an emergency management planner.
They have one daughter, Megaehan Lewis, 30, of the Philadelphia, Pa., area.
Lewis said she will miss the people, including the public and staff, “the people around me and the stories they tell.” She’ll also miss working with the city codes.
“You try to make the codes work with people rather than against them,” Lewis said.
“I’m really proud of the way the city organization has addressed some tough issues,” Lewis said. Staff members have had to figure out how to work without a lot of money, and they’ve done it by being as knowledgeable and helpful as possible when people walk in.
The city organization has become stable, she said. She has worked for six city managers. Martin has been here for 16 years.
“The growth we made, I think, was tremendous,” Lewis said.