March 03, 2008 01:26 pm
More than a few interesting questions have come up in recent talks about economic development in and around La Grande. One has to do with the status quo, as in, “Are you happy with the status quo?”
La Grande Mayor Colleen Johnson raised the query as she tried in a city council work session to spark discussion of the local economy and whether enough things are happening fast enough. Johnson maintained that things have gone stagnant. She also said the status quo isn’t good enough, at least not for her. She held that the community needs to grow.
People are free to agree or disagree, and of course, they do. There are those among us who think the only good growth is no growth at all. Others think the Grande Ronde Valley should be sold and developed from pillar to post, the quicker the better. Still others, a wise majority, know that sure, steady, well-modulated growth is the best thing that can happen to us all.
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February 27, 2008 02:58 pm
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More than two years ago a diverse group of recreationists went public with a conceptual plan that had the potential to put 3,700 acres of private forest lands on Mount Emily into public ownership and management. The group had been meeting with representatives of Forest Capital Partners, the timber management company that purchased a large chunk of Boise Cascade’s timber holdings, to see if a purchase could be arranged.
About two years ago the Mt. Emily Recreation Coalition announced publicly what it was working toward. The group wanted to somehow find a way to purchase the popular recreational and timber lands so that they would remain accessible to the variety of interests that use the area — everything from ATVers to hikers, horseback riders and mountain bikers, as well as provide a sustainable timber resource.
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February 26, 2008 03:57 pm
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The 2nd Congressional District is larger than any state east of the Mississippi River. That’s right, state. So it is welcome news that U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., is opening a regional office in La Grande to complement ones already up and running in Medford and Bend.
The move will allow Northeast Oregon constituents better access to the congressman and his staff and improve the odds that local problems of a federal nature will get solved in a timely manner.
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February 21, 2008 03:05 pm
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Patrons of the Imbler School District have a lot to think about as the school board considers converting the district to a charter school system. From all appearances, considering the district’s impending enrollment decline, becoming a charter system is worth a look.
The Imbler district has a lot going for it — so much so that many families from outside the district have enrolled their kids at Imbler — 72 to be exact, with many of them from La Grande. The district apparently is meeting some needs that are not being met elsewhere.
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February 20, 2008 02:37 pm
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Boise Cascade’s announcement on Monday that it was curtailing operations for two weeks at its Elgin stud mill didn’t come as a complete surprise considering the state of the nationwide housing slump. The fact that Boise has withstood the economic downtown as well as it has — and for as long as it has — is testament to how well the company positioned itself in the months leading up to the housing slump.
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February 19, 2008 02:20 pm
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It’s more than just mastering tractor driving through obstacle courses and honing any variety of shop skills, although those are important. It’s leadership skills. Personal growth. Career success. That’s what the ubiquitous blue jackets of the National FFA Organization are all about.
For the last almost 80 years, FFA has launched students into about 300 career paths in the rapidly expanding field of agriculture.
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February 18, 2008 03:01 pm
The campaign to expose and root out steriod abuse in major league baseball is a good and admirable thing. But here’s the question: doesn’t Congress have more important things to do?
Last week, the nation watched, either spellbound or bored to tears, as former pitching great Roger Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, basically called each other liars over the issue of whether Clemens juiced.
Clemens, of course, told congressional inquisitors he never did. McNamee insists the opposite. He says he shot The Rocket up with steroids and human growth hormone in 1998, 2000 and 2001.
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February 14, 2008 03:05 pm
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We’re all for President Bush and whichever presidential candidate gets elected in November getting rid of wasteful federal programs. Any peek at the Golden Fleece Awards, which over the years have included everything from surfing subsidies to TV watching lessons, or the list of pork-barrel spending — the $4 billion per mile Big Dig project in Boston is a notorious example — would result in dozens of worthy choices for the budget ax. Rural health care should not be among the targets.
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February 13, 2008 03:23 pm
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Let’s hear it for the 14 members of the Oregon National Guard who volunteered their time Saturday to drive up to Meacham and dig out some of the folks who have been buried by this winter’s overwhelming snowfall.
The plight of Charlene Davis — a.k.a. Grandma Chipmunk — was chronicled in The Observer two times last week, first in her own words and then in a followup story.
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February 12, 2008 02:13 pm
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Improving library service in our rural area is a noble quest. That’s why, in many ways, it was sad to see the book slam shut on a six-year effort to establish a Union County library district.
A dedicated group of volunteers did a wonderful job of demonstrating the benefits such a district would bring to the county. But in the end, the pricetag seemed just too great for too large a percentage of the taxpaying public. A library district would have cost taxpayers 85 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. At a time when La Grande has just built a marvelous new library that is used by people from throughout the county, and when Oregon is teetering on the brink of a recession, it seems most taxpayers did not have a library district that high on their priority list.
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