Scott Swanson
It’s been a busy summer for us here at The New Era and apparently it’s not just us.
Reading our story on page 15 about the progress of the city’s vision process, it’s pretty clear that we aren’t participating as much as we probably should be.
Basically, the visioning effort comes down to this: If you could sit down at the drawing board and design what you would like Sweet Home to be like a decade from now, or several decades from now, what would that look like? How about Sweet Home right now? What do you like about it? What do you value about this town?
For the last several months Sweet Home city staff and various community residents have met two or three times to discuss those very questions.
Since last spring, the city has held “visioning” meetings designed to get input from local residents about what they would like to see the city become. It’s part of the city’s larger strategic planning and parks master planning from community development, economic developing, education and safety perspectives.
I know, that may not sound overly exciting; when we all have big agendas full of things to do, it’s difficult to focus on something that requires a lot of concentration and imagination.
However, this is about planning our community’s road into the future. That’s why it’s called the Strategic Plan.
This plan will cover many aspects of life here in Sweet Home because its purpose is to help the community increase its success. Part of that process is not only identifying what we want to happen, but how to get there – coming up with tangible things we can do to make it happen.
I frequently hear complaints about physical aspects of Sweet Home. The number of vagrants. The traffic flow (or lack thereof). The lack, or condition, of recreational programs and facilities. The trash. The cost of water when there’s a large river flowing by, a mile away. Trashy buildings. Grafitti. The lack of shopping. The need for this restaurant or that, which doesn’t exist here. The need for jobs. Etc.
Are we going to need a new City Hall any time soon? How could we pay for that? What about our parks? They aren’t in the greatest shape. How are we going to keep our police and library funded? What needs to happen and how can we make it happen?
That’s what this vision effort is all about. It’s answering the question: “What do you want?”
This process started last April, right before things got busy for a lot of us. Truth be told, the turnout for these visioning events hasn’t been particularly overwhelming.
It certainly hasn’t been the kind of response that we saw back in 2008, after a couple of community-improvement experts visited Sweet Home and basically told us (putting it nicely) that they weren’t impressed with our town. But that occurred early in the year, when it was cold and rainy and we didn’t have gardens to tend, places to go and things to do. Plus, a lot of us were a little angry and highly motivated, which is always a good way to get action.
In many ways, this is just as important as those meetings were. This is planning for the future. A lot of the problems Sweet Home is experiencing now – the width and condition of many of its streets, the condition of many of its structures, its parks, its sewer and water system, etc. is largely due to lack of planning in the early days when people were just kind of living in the moment. We’re living with the results now.
Well, is that what we want? Is that what we want for the kids and grandkids? Do we like everything about who we are? Are there things we need to change?
The pot is bubbling right now for Sweet Home, as we’ve pointed out numerous times on this page. The community forest (see last week’s edition). The Cool Soda project (page 1 today). The liveability initiative that we’ve reported on in recent months and will continue to do so as that takes shape.
All these are efforts by people with knowledge, power and interest in helping Sweet Home develop.
This visioning process is a chance for all of us to participate, on the very local level, in making Sweet Home itself a more attractive place to which people might want to come and spend money or invest.
The initiatives mentioned above aren’t going to solve all of Sweet Home’s problems, but they’re steps in the direction of giving us options we don’t have now.
I’ve missed every one of the visioning meetings due to conflicts – I think I was out of town for at least two of them. But if I want to have a say in what’s going to happen next in our town, it’s incumbent on me, as well as all of us, to get down to City Hall and take a look at what’s been done, and talk to the staff about what’s important to us.
There’s going to be a big community meeting later this fall, as we report in our story, but as a longtime journalist who’s watched many of these plans take shape over the years in the various communities I’ve worked and lived in, I know that speaking up early is a lot better than waiting until the plan has already been written.