Community involvement is a high priority for several of the candidates seeking seats on the Sisters City Council. It may be a difficult goal to attain if attendance at a candidate's Chamber of Commerce-sponsored forum on Monday, October 16, is any indication.

Despite sparse turnout, the candidates spent an hour-and-half sketching out their predictions and goals for Sisters' evolution over the next four or five years.

Lon Kellstrom, Sharlene Weed, Bill Merrill and Dave Elliott are vying for three seats on the city council; Merrill is the only challenger to three incumbents.

Weed said she expects Sisters' population to double in the next five years; the other councilors doubt that growth will be quite that intense. Most believe that within five years Sisters will be building a new elementary school and still be working on solving traffic problems.

All the candidates agree that the future of the 53 acres of Forest Service land along Pine Street will be critical to the future of the town.

"I'd like to see a lot of it park land," said Weed.

She said she would also like to see affordable housing and parking on the land - "things the market is not giving us."

Kellstrom said he believes that the creation of an overlay zone is the right way to guide development on the site. He said he supports a mix of uses that would include downtown and highway commercial development, public facilities such as parks and multi-family housing.

Merrill said he'd like to see a school and a swimming pool on the site.

"I think that's an ideal place for a community center that would include a senior center," he said.

Kellstrom cautioned that the Forest Service will insist on getting enough money out of the project to fund its needs.

Elliott argued that "everything is on the table when it comes to this property." He, like others, believes the acreage provides opportunities for the city to support affordable housing.

Housing was a big issue that cropped up in discussions of the business climate in Sisters.

Kellstrom sounded a cautious note about the city's capability to make an impact.

"Unless the the taxpayers are willing to step up and subsidize something, there's not going to be much we can do," he said.

He cited high demand and resulting high land costs as a hurdle to affordable housing and noted that the city has high fees which are generally passed along to home buyers.

"Land is the problem," said Elliott. "That's where the dollars come in."

Elliott argued that the city can support land trusts or rent subsidy pools that don't impact taxpayers.

Weed said that the city should immediately implement fee waivers on systems development charges for affordable housing. SDCs can add up to $10,000 for a home.

Merrill argued that the city should develop a housing plan as laid out in the comprehensive plan.

All four candidates agree that Sisters must solve its transportation problems, but none offered firm solutions. Merrill has proposed incremental traffic control measures to smooth traffic flow, ultimately leading to an undefined form of a couplet. Kellstrom says he believes a couplet will be the ultimate decision of the city.

Weed says the city "hasn't pushed hard enough for a bypass" and Elliott believes that eventually something will have to be done to at least re-route truck traffic.

No candidate offered a definitive proposal for a long-term traffic solution.

Public involvement came up several times during the forum, with Weed and Merrill expressing the strongest desire to enhance it through creating advisory committees and, in Weed's case, a parks board. Kellstrom remained largely silent on the subject and Elliott expressed some doubts.

He argued that the city has reached out for public involvement repeatedly over years and received a lukewarm response.

Merrill's response was that "you can't just say 'we want you.' You've gotta go out and grab 'em by the scruff of the neck and bring 'em in."

Ballots go out this weekend.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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