Four Albany City Council members made what could become a big mistake on Wednesday. Councilors Floyd Collins, Ray Kopczynski, Dick Olsen and Bill Coburn voted not to place in the city charter the debt-limit initiative voters had approved in March. Only Councilors Rich Kellum and Bessie Johnson were against rejecting the voters’ decision this way. […]
I stopped my bicycle on Spring Hill Drive on Tuesday to take a quick look at this field. It looked like a field of rapeseed or, as we now call it, canola. I would have been surer of this if there had been a sign telling passersby what they’re looking at. I’ve long had an […]
Tom Cordier, holding papers, after Monday’s city council work session. By declaring Albany’s debt-limit charter amendment to have passed, the city council could make peace with the more than 5,000 voters who approved it last month. But apparently it won’t. At a work session Monday, the council majority seemed to agree to go ahead and […]
This is how the Albany City Council plans to deal with voter approval of the debt limit initiative last month: At a work session on Monday afternoon it will preview the draft of an ordinance which the council could then enact on Wednesday. The outlines of the draft were agreed on — though not […]
Springtime means maintenance work along the banks of Albany’s Cox Creek from Salem Avenue to the Willamette River. A crew working for R. Franco Restoration, an Aumsville-based contractor for the Calapooia Watershed Council, spent Friday killing weeds around thousands of plantings placed on the bank last fall. Earlier, the contractor had cleared the creek banks […]
It’s not obvious to me why Republicans are opposed to making the owners of so-called green vehicles pay their fair share of the cost of keeping up Oregon roads. Owners of all-electric and hybrid cars now pay little or nothing toward the highway fund, even while all other motorists buying fuel in Oregon pay 30 […]
Oregon will cut universities loose
Oregon’s three biggest public universities are about to undergo a big change in how they are governed. This could be good if it holds down or even lowers the price of attendance, as unlikely as that is. It will be a mistake if it accelerates the soaring rise in tuition and fees and results in […]
Tags: Mark Hass, Oregon State University, Oregon universities, SB 270