City Matters -- Spring Trail News 2006
By Bob Bailey, City Commissioner

SPRING IS COMING! For weeks we endured… and enjoyed…classic Oregon winter rainstorms, short days made shorter and darker by cloudy skies, and streams full to overflowing with fast brown runoff. But look around! Baby leaves of tulip, daffodil, and irises are shooting up. Beneath still-dormant maples the budding green leaves of shrubs signal a new beginning. Days are longer, the sky a little higher and lighter. Streams are back in their banks, the gray-green water perfect for steelhead fishing. By the time this Trail News is published, flowers will be truly blooming and lawns ready for mowing.

So too are there signs of an economic spring all around Oregon City after some cloudy, dark and stormy days. Green leaves of new businesses are budding on old limbs. See for yourself on 7th Street and Molalla Avenue! New restaurants, cafes, and businesses are blooming, with more to come. Go enjoy! Older storefronts are being painted, trimmed with new awnings, and renewed. Downtown Main Street is abloom with remodeled buildings and new business. Our city-wide garden has terrific landscaping touches that are fresh and new, too. Climb the stairs next to the elevator and check out the craftsmanship in the restored historic rock walls and railings.

Like the plants that grow and bloom in succession through the spring and into the summer, more is coming. As you know from the headlines, the City approved reconstruction of the final segment of Beavercreek Road with the last of the Hilltop Urban Renewal District dollars. This investment will make that heavily used road safer and more convenient for drivers while the new sidewalks, landscaping, and street lamps will make it safer and more attractive for pedestrians. But just as important, we are confident that it will create opportunities for economic development that will transform Beavercreek Road into a major office and retail corridor for Oregon City.

But nowhere has the City worked harder to till the economic soil, plant seeds, and encourage new development than in the north end landfill — Clackamas Cove area. Despite being bisected by I–205 and the railroad tracks, complicated vehicle access, floodplain issues (remember February 1996?), contaminated soils from old industrial operations, and other limitations, the potential economic opportunities in this area have attracted serious and high quality private sector interest. Many thanks go to our Master Gardener and City Manager, Larry Patterson, for his guidance and hard work in tilling this soil. Crop failures are always possible, but your Commission is quite optimistic that this abused landscape will soon produce a new economic engine for Oregon City.

These private investments throughout the city do more than provide jobs and a new look. They will go a long ways toward strengthening Oregon City’s property tax base, which is over reliant on homeowners. A more robust and balanced tax base, in turns, means that the city will better able to support libraries, police services, streets and roads, parks, and all the other things we want from a great city. So get ready, Oregon City, for a great economic springtime and terrific endless summer!