Sean C. Morgan
Since moving to Sweet Home last summer, Candi Unger has gotten involved in her new community by joining the city Planning Commission.
The City Council appointed Unger, 44, to the commission in March. She succeeds Thomas Herb, who moved away from Sweet Home.
Unger moved to Sweet Home from Junction City in August. She has been site manager at Sweet Home Sanitation for a year and a half.
She grew up in Coburg and attended the University of Oregon and Northwest Christian College in Eugene, graduating from Northwest in 1997 with a bachelor of science degree in general sciences, with a focus primarily on chemistry and biology.
She worked for Sweet Home Sanitation’s sister company, Sanipac in Eugene, for 20 years. Both companies are owned by Waste Connections.
“I didn’t want to work in a lab my whole life,” Unger said. “I got a job at the garbage company.”
She came to Sweet Home via a promotion, she said.
“It was a big step for me, but I’m glad I did it. I love Sweet Home and the community. The air is just fresher here, and the sun is brighter.”
She means that literally, the way some folks often observe the difference in weather between Sweet Home and the rest of the Willamette Valley, but the big part of her decision to move to Sweet Home is that “the commute was just too much.”
She originally applied to serve on the Park and Tree Committee, Unger said. “They said they also had an opening on the Planning Commission and asked if I would be interested in it.”
She looked into it and decided to withdraw her Park and Tree Committee application.
“I thought it (Planning Commission) would be more challenging,” said Unger, who had previously had served several years on the Board of Directors for the Veneta Chamber of Commerce.
As a planning commissioner, “my role is to understand the city code and Comprehensive Plan, the zoning for Sweet Home and apply it to applications that people turn in, to make adjustments to it,” Unger said. “I’m not coming here with an agenda to try to change things or mix it up.”
She said she uses reason to reach decisions, and “I will learn from the other commissioners who have more experience and lived here longer and take direction from them.”
She is concerned about the lack of housing in Sweet Home, she said. “It took me a few months to actually purchase a house.”
Last summer, as soon as a house went on the market, it was under contract before she could even look at it, Unger said. That’s because Sweet Home is a desirable place to live, not too big and not too small. Everything anyone might need is close by. It’s close to the mountains and not far from the ocean.
It just needs more houses built and more affordable housing, she said.
Unger lives with her fiance Jeff Vaughan and her dog, Whiskey.