Scott Swanson
Sweet Home Economic Development Group members last week elected two new faces to the organization’s board of directors.
At the annual members meeting Wednesday, March 18, members re-elected directors Kellie Kem and Rob Poirier to four-year terms, and chose Heather Search to fill another seat through 2018 and Jared Richey to serve a two-year term.
Search, an accountant with Phyllis Schmitz in Lebanon, has lived in Sweet Home for 20 years and has served on various boards, including the Boys & Girls Club of the Greater Santiam, Linn County 4-H Horse Leaders Association, and others.
She has volunteered in the Beer Garden at the Oregon Jamboree for 10 years and said she believes “the exciting things that are happening reflect a potential for growth,” and therefore wanted to serve on the SHEDG board.
Richey, a lieutenant in the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District, in which he has volunteered for 16 years, is a supervisor in crowd management with the Jamboree.
I believe that SHEDG is on the verge of big changes that will afford a greater opportunity for the Oregon Jamboree, as well as economic growth for the entire community,” he said in a written statement for the election. “I feel that my years of experience working in construction would be beneficial to SHEDG as it begins the next step in developing the Knife River Property, and I would be excited to be part of something that has great potential for Sweet Home.”
Poirier, who previously had served as a SHEDG board member, returned in 2013 to fill a vacant position. He has a background in telecommunications, program management, fiscal oversight and more and has been a Jamboree volunteer for 19 years, most recently as a member of the management team.
Kem, a 20-year resident of Sweet Home, has volunteered for a wide range of local organizations including the Chamber of Commerce, Sweet Home Rodeo and the Jamboree, where she has been a supervisor in the box office and currently supervises the Information Booth. She owns a downtown business.
Oregon Jamboree
Oregon Jamboree Director Erin Regrutto reviewed the 2014 Jamboree and Sweet Events, a new consulting and production branch of SHEDG that focuses on smaller events. They included a mystery concert in March, a performance by Jo Dee Messina in Portland, a partnership with the City of Sweet Home to put on Movies in the Park last summer, and the Fireworks Express with Rick Franklin Corp. in which participants rode the train from Lebanon, enjoyed the Sportsman’s Holiday fireworks from The Point Restaurant at Foster Lake, then returned to Lebanon on the train. In October Sweet Events partnered with Bicoastal Media to put on the Taste of Home Cooking School as well as a couple more train events with Rick Franklin in December.
Regrutto noted that some “big things” happened last year, including the Jamboree’s largest crowd ever, 18,000 for Tim McGraw on Saturday night, the highest ticket sales in the history of the event, and some “significant” site improvements that included a new cabana area next to Weddle Bridge that provided a “very cool VIP area” and a larger Beer Garden 1 along Ames Creek, and a larger stage that met artists’ requirements better than what the event had previously.
The Jamboree also put on several fund-raisers for local causes, including a benefit concert by Cloverdayle, one of this year’s performers, for the Sweet Home Auditorium Restoration Committee, a “Backstage Barbecue” and auction by artist Austin Webb for the Sweet Home Community Foundation and a Crown Royal Happy Hour with A Thousand Horses.
Regrutto said the Jamboree’s payout to local businesses, property owners and government agencies last year was nearly $260,000.
She said plans for the 2015 event include a craft beer garden featuring all-Oregon beers and, possibly an after-hours event, and some expansions to the cabana and sponsor hospitality.
Net revenue from Sweet Events was “a little over $21,000,” from a gross of $37,000, from consulting services (17 percent) and ticket sales (83 percent), Regrutto said. The Jamboree grossed some $2.5 million, with a net of $285,000, but administrative expenses were a little over $300,000 for SHEDG as a whole.
She listed about 68 local organizations and groups that have received funds from the Jamboree, totaling about $259,000. Of those totals, 40 received about $31,000 in in-kind donations.
Community organizations, from school groups to fraternal organizations, receive nearly $102,000.
Some $20,000 goes to the city, Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District and School District, she said. Another $62,000 was paid out to local businesses, including Sweet Home Sanitation, Seamingly Creative, The New Era, Lilies and Lovelies, Mr. Lucky’s Deli and others.
The in-kind support includes “a ton” of three-day passes and gift certificates to local nonprofits, which sell them in raffles and auctions.
Property Committee
Rachel Kittson-MaQatish, chair of the Property Committee, summarized her committee’s activities over the past year. She said SHEDG leaders have set goals of making the 220.62-acre former Knife River quarry property, adjacent to the South Santiam River north of Clark Mill Road and Zelkovan Street, available for public use within a year and making it available for use by the Oregon Jamboree within three years.
MaQatish noted that the property has “historical significance” for many local residents.
There are attachments to that property for many in this community,” she said.
She reported that members of her committee have met with county and city officials throughout the acquisition process that has taken place before and since SHEDG officially asked the county for control of the land last fall.
The city has mass, mass files of work on this property and the county does as well,” MaQatish said. “There’s a huge history.”
County officials have “moved forward” on the property to get it to a point where the property is ready for use in the eyes of the Department of Environmental Quality with the exception of one “very small” portion on which fuel was dumped, she said.
Property Committee members have also been invited to participate in a community assessment to determine what to do with the neighboring Weyerhaeuser property, which will require more cleanup, she said.
SHEDG has hired an environmental law attorney to go over its “due diligence” work and help it apply for a Protective Purchaser Agreement from the DEQ, which, MaQatish said, is “just an extra insurance policy.
We already feel very comfortable about the position that we are in, that even without a PPA agreement, we felt comfortable moving forward and taking that property based on an environmental and business assessment,” she said.
The transfer hasn’t taken place yet, she noted. The county still owns the property and negotiations are still under way.
SHEDG’s goals, she said, include providing public access to the property and getting “community buy-in.”
I don’t want to be out there with my shovel,” MaQatish said. “I want the whole community out there working on this property together.” Other goals are getting the music festival and other events situated on the site.
President’s Report
SHEDG President John Wittwer told attendees that SHEDG’s finances are at the point where the organization is “consuming more money than it’s bringing in,” dipping into its reserve funds. “We are at a point where our cash reserves are our cash.”
But given the “collateral benefits” of the event, he said, directors are determined to keep it going.
Jamboree activities have, in various ways, contributed more than $2.2 million into the community since it began – over half a million dollars to the school district, nearly a quarter million to the city and Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District, nearly $100,000 to high school sports teams and clubs, more than $200,000 to the Sweet Home Community Foundation, and some $700,000 to service clubs, parent-teacher groups and others.
Most of that is collateral from the Jamboree, he said.
The value of this event to the community can’t be measured.”
Wittwer quizzed attendees regarding what they considered a “highly functioning board” and asked members in attendance how they thought the board could function better.
I place a great deal of stock in the work that we did to identify what we’re about and what are the core things that should drive our mission.”
He said board members met last year to set goals and one was to have a “highly functioning board.”
I would be interested in what you think that means,” he said, asking the attendees for input.
Cindy Glick, Sweet Home district ranger and a board member for the last three years, suggested it would be “a board that has different perspectives, and skills and abilities to work together in a team-like manner to solve problems and promote development.”
Board member Joe Graybill added, “A board that’s not afraid of conflict, that generally tends to resolve problems.”
SHEDG members Ken Bronson and Arlene Paschen both said they believed it is a board “that gets the job done.”
Wittwer said he suspected that “most of us have had lots of experience on low-functioning boards – we shadow-box around things, we revisit items that we supposedly solved once in the past, we continue to tread water.
I’ve been president less than a year and I’m starting to feel like I understand what I should be doing. It takes time.”
SHEDG, he said is “a great organization to participate in,” and “is not a fly-by-night group.”
You’re a member of an institution that has some legs under it.”
I can’t say enough about the prospects, the excitement that I feel when I think about having a board at whatever level we are now functioning, to get that baby ratcheted up so we can hold ourselves up as a model in harmony with our mission to be leaders, to lead efforts in our community.”
Wittwer and others said SHEDG’s general membership needs to grow.
We’ve said we need 100 members instead of 40.”
Poirier agreed, saying that there will be “a lot of heavy lifting to do” in the future. “I think it’s really easy to get involved in projects that are bigger than you are by yourself.”
He said SHEDG needs “a more robust organization, with more people to be committee members, even if they can’t commit to being on the board, to help with the heavy lifting.”
Wittwer pointed out that 900 volunteers put on the Jamboree each year.
I feel this is really crucial, that we increase our outreach in whatever form we can,” he said.
Cromwell likened her view of a high-functioning board to a college rowing team.
All those members have to have the same goal in mind, they have to be very singular, very on point. Every member of that rowing team has to row and contribute. If you have one or two members of that rowing team who are not contributing, that boat is going to go in circles. It’s never going to get to the finish line.”
Wittwer said it will be important for SHEDG participants to have focused goals.
I believe that we may safely predict that SHEDG’s future success will depend on the degree to which SHEDG’s board members, employees and volunteers enthusiastically commit to SHEDG’s vision, values and mission.”