The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

The planning commission meeting last week was very disappointing. Watching the planning commission working on the new Hayden development, McKenzie Meadows Village, was painful.

I want to thank Jack Nagel for all his efforts to make the other commissioners understand the need for the gates. Jack understood the need for the safety and the fact that our streets are too small for a main thoroughfare. Unfortunately, his comments fell on deaf ears. The other commissioners all voted against the citizens of the Village at Cold Springs. They cared more about an outdated code than the safety of the children and seniors that live, play and walk on Williamson and Hill.

They all believed Mr. Beeson when he was more worried about McKinney Butte and the roundabout than the safety of the 300-plus citizens of Sisters that live in the Village at Cold Springs. I also find it interesting and disturbing that several of them never visited the Village at Cold Springs, did any measurements of the streets to see the actual size, rather than relying on Mr. Beeson and the City

staff.

I also find it interesting that they were willing to change the various codes for Hayden’s benefit at this meeting, but not for the benefit of the citizens of Village at Cold Springs. In fact, the City has a history of changing the codes for Hayden.

There were overwhelming comments and evidence presented at the meeting on March 7 talking about safety and the fact that these are private streets owned and maintained by the homeowners in the Village at Cold Springs.

Two of the members of the planning commission were not in attendance at the March 7 meeting, yet they voted against the citizens of Sisters. I am hard-pressed to believe they read every e-mail submission, every letter and listened to the recording of the March 7th meeting. You cannot understand the emotion of the citizens by reading something. They should have recused themselves.

The City hired a “traffic engineer” from Bend who I don’t think ever visited the Village at Cold Springs. He just read off the plans and the codes given to him by City staff. He said the streets are 28 feet wide, when in fact the paved area is 24 feet wide. You can’t count the curbs because you can’t drive on them or park on them. Mr. Beeson made that comment. These streets are privately owned, maintained and the HOA pays taxes on these streets. He said the “code says these streets need to be connected so as to relieve traffic on McKinney Butte and the roundabout.”

The important aspect of this vote for the citizens of the Village at Cold Springs was the installation of the gates to minimize the traffic flowing through our neighborhood on our very narrow and private streets. Listening to the discussion, none of them understood what kind of a gate we were talking about. I know the oral comments were cut off, but don’t you think they could have asked us since we have all the information on how these gates would work and were all in the room to answer the questions and explain how they would

work?

I know the Planning Commission is a volunteer commission and I appreciate how difficult this can be. But they need to be more in tune with the needs of the citizens of Sisters. The citizens are who should be protected!