As you can see and hear, the cleanup continues at North Albany County Park after the harvest of scores of ailing and dead Douglas firs. Meanwhile, Benton County is getting ready to unveil its concepts for updating the 22-acre park and dealing with the nearby 10-acre wooded parcel newly donated by the developer of the adjacent Albany Heights subdivision.
Albany has been a railroad town since the century before the last one. Residents get plenty of chances to watch trains go by, as I did again on Wednesday at the Burkhart Street crossing for pedestrians and bikes. The train was short, but it still had something to say to watchers like me.
When it comes to gun stories in the news, one question of considerable interest is rarely addressed: Exactly how did the felons in the stories obtain the firearms they are charged with unlawfully possessing?
It was possible today to begin to see the outline of the new home of the Albany Carousel, and guess what — it matches the artist’s rendering that everybody has been looking at for a couple of years.
Well, Thursday night was a bust as far as swifts were concerned. The Audubon Society of Corvallis and associated bird groups announced an “Albany Swift Tower Monitoring” for Thursday evening. No swifts swooped in to test their new roost. And nobody else showed up to see them not doing so.
Monday afternoon didn’t promise any greater excitement elsewhere, so why not take in a public “town hall” meeting put on by Congressman Peter DeFazio, the Democrat who has represented Oregon’s 4th District since way before anybody worried about global warming. So I went.
Facebook followers of the Albany Happenings page have probably seen a picture of the “blessing box.” On a bike ride Wednesday, I noticed the actual thing on Salem Avenue S.E. I stopped, knocked on a couple of doors and got to meet its originator, Christine Rayburn.
