On a slow day you can always amuse yourself by browsing what the Oregon legislature is up to. Take, for instance, the left-lane bill that cleared a Senate committee last Wednesday by a vote of 4 to zip.
It took each of 13 graduate students in landscape architecture only a few weeks to come up with a different concept of how Albany might some day develop the East Thornton Lake Natural Area. They got the assignment in January, and on Friday they showed their plans to a small but appreciative audience at City Hall.
Most members of Albany’s urban renewal board want to install “wayfinding signs” downtown to point out the sights. But they’re not about to pay anything close to $300,000 — which was one estimate — to get it done.
Willamette revival one house at a time
Albany’s Willamette Neighborhood is coming back, and Paul Dykast and others like him are the reason why. They see an old house, dilapidated and maybe covered in vines, and seize the opportunity to make it into an appealing home that is both traditional and new.