Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Scott McKee Jr. looks forward to seeing Sweet Home grow and offer more to its residents, but he wants to make sure that growth happens reasonably.
McKee, 22, began serving on the Planning Commission and the city Budget Committee after the City Council appointed him to those positions last month. Budget Committee meetings will start in the spring. He participated in the January Planning Commission meeting.
“I really like working with people,” McKee said. “I enjoy people. I see myself as a person that would be really good as a politician.”
A high-school dropout, McKee said, the Sweet Home community helped him turn his life around. Early in junior high, he said he was getting involved in drugs and other negative behavior.
“I really quickly learned that was not the life I wanted to live,” McKee said. He credits Carol Leinbach, Carolyn Care, Debbie Jewell and Linda Holley, all assistants at the junior high and high school, for showing him another way.
“They just supported me and always encouraged me to do better and gave me the feeling someone cared,” McKee said. Getting involved in the community is where it has led even though he did not graduate with a diploma in 2001 as he should have, he said. Instead, he earned his GED.
McKee started attending Linn-Benton Community College with a major in public relations. Right now, he is working full time in the produce department at Safeway while his wife, Brianne, finishes school at LBCC, where she attends full-time.
McKee also volunteers as a team leader in crowd management for the Oregon Jamboree.
The McKees have two children, Cora Halley Ann, 5, and Noah, 22 months.
Working on the Planning Commission and Budget Committee, along with previous appointments to the Tree Commission and Parks Board, is an opportunity to gain experience for future endeavors, McKee said.
“Up until this year, I really felt like I wanted to leave the area, knowing what’s offered here,” he said.
He decided to stay and get involved in the public arena instead.
“Oregon’s population is supposed to double in the next 10 to 15 years. I want to be a part of that,” he said.
With the logging industry dwindling, McKee said, “The community needs something more. We need to embrace at least a little growth.”
High school students need jobs, he said, and more smaller businesses would help improve the community, while providing more funding to help out schools.
“I like Sweet Home as long as it’s willing to change a little bit,” he said, and Sweet Home has shown that willingness.
“We’re kind of in a little cubbyhole over here and have been since I moved here in junior high,” McKee said. “Now, (the city is) getting a name for itself, and people want to move in.
“I want to make sure we have stuff (businesses and services) for my family,” he said.
McKee sees that happening, and “I want to embrace that. I would say we need to embrace the growth, but we need to do it carefully.”
Growth needs to be coordinated carefully through the city, fire officials and school district, McKee said. As fast as growth is coming to Sweet Home, it would be easy to make and miss a mistake. Careful planning can prevent that.
“I really care what the people have to say,” McKee said. “I do get a lot of interaction with people, and it helps out knowing what the community expects out of the Planning Commission,” to hear what people think generally outside of the Planning Commission setting.
McKee is still learning about the city’s budgeting process, he said, but “it’s important to me that we have a safe city. It’s important to me that the Police Department has what they need to run.”
Call loads are growing and he sees that as “really important” to address because of the local methamphetamine problem, which probably accounts for 70 to 80 percent of criminal cases, McKee said, and police need to be able to protect Sweet Home from this.
“The Police Department is the most important — keeping it whole and a full department. We definitely need to make a way to make sure our Police Department has funds to operate safely,” he added, noting that he holds other city services as high priorities too. “Definitely, the library is very important to me.”
Police funding through the city’s temporary local option levy has not been enough in the last two years to fund police services. The city has had to transfer money from the general fund services to police operations, something it had not done since the mid- to late-1990s. City officials have projected similar transfers in the city’s budget during the budget process this spring.
The city’s budget problems are intertwined with growth, McKee said. Improved safety helps promote growth. Growth increases the money available for services such as law enforcement, but growth brings its own problems and demand for more services.
At his first Planning Commission meeting, “I feel like I learned a lot,” McKee said. “It was an awesome experience.”
He was able to see an issue with two sides, and it gave him an idea what he, as a commissioner, should be concerned about in future hearings, McKee said. “I love being on there with experienced men in our community.”
McKee said he doesn’t plan to let the fellow commissioners make his decisions for him, but he definitely values their comments and will factor that into his decision making.
Even more than helping plan for growth and budgets as it affects his family, McKee feels “I owe the community too.”