Westfir Town Hall meeting November 15th, 2022: Mayor briefs citizens on current issues

By JOY KINGSBURY/for The Herald  —  Mayor D’Lynn Williams opened with a little background on affairs in progress and asked for citizens comments promising a question and answer session at the end of the presentations.

Cookies and drinks were available for the audience.

Mayor Williams talked about the Housing needs analysis by Cascade Partners, funded by a grant, to be presented in a public forum this winter. A preliminary report by survey showing a need for Condos, Additional Dwelling Unit’s, and alternative types housing.
There is land to accommodate the City ’s 20-year projections.

New engineer of record has several projects lined up

City Clerk, Nicole Tritton, told the audience The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) has granted the City $59,305 to reimburse the city for COVID related expenses. City has hired Civil West Engineering Services to provide an Engineer of Record to replace faulty main lines on Westfir Rd. Also, Installing a bio swale flood barrier at the wastewater plant and design a 250,000 gallon storage tank is on tap. They will explore extending sewer and water lines to the mill site for future development.

Mayor Williams talked about the City plans to improve a boat launch area at the confluence of the North and Middle Forks of the Willamette River. The area is designated as a park. The City is looking for funding to install bathrooms, signage and harden the boat ramp surface.

Fire Chief Gunny McKee briefs Council on progress

Jim (Gunny) Mc Kee, now Westfir’s Volunteer Fire Chief, appearing in uniform, gave an update on his plan to form a Westfir Fire Department. He told the audience he has had meetings with Chief Hollett of the Oakridge Fire Department and they will form a close partnership to help and respond to calls from one another’s departments whenever possible.

McKee continues to stress that his plan for the Westfir Fire Department will be of great benefit to Oakridge as well, in spite of the fact that Oakridge will lose $35,000 in revenue now produced by the Inter Governmental agreement with Oakridge to furnish fire protection to Westfir. The problem there is the fact that Oakridge cannot respond to a fire in Westfir in under ten minutes, at which point all that can be done is to protect the surrounding buildings. A fire must be responded to in minutes, fire can engulf a building very quickly.

Technical training will be a priority

Mc Kee schooled the audience on the different designations for Emergency Medical Technicians. These being: Emergency Medical Responder 1st, EMT Basic, EMT Advanced, and EMT Intermediate. The next step up is Paramedic. Mc Kee is an EMT Intermediate and is certified to do training in this field. He is expecting to have this Fire Dept. together and ready to serve in one year with trained volunteers. He is holding off on volunteer recruitment until he is ready to “keep them busy.” McKee has volunteers lined up who are willing to embark on this new adventure in public safety.

Westfir Mayor and Council, along with “Gunny” will look for grants to help with the funding. They all feel positive they will obtain some since wildfires have been in the news in this area for some time. Monies have been committed to that purpose. Gunny’s priority is getting the engine for Westfir. However,  he first needs to be fully staffed in order to man the engine. Also, keeping ambulance service is critical to both areas. He went on to stress that as an inducement to serve, a stipend is paid to volunteers who are willing to do a full shift.

City of Westfir and surrounding areas will still explore a Special Fire District for the area.

Barking dogs are a local issue

There was much discussion about barking and vicious dogs. Councilor Packard led the discussion on this issue. The City may have to revamp its code since citizens have been complaining regularly about noise from constantly barking dogs. There have been more than one dog bite. The dog owners either do not, cannot, or will not control these dogs. Officer Madsen, from the Oakridge Police Department was on hand. He explained that code enforcement could be used, for citizens to document all and the Police will issue a citation.

Old grocery store to go unused

Councilor Bishop brought everyone up to date on the Trans-Cascadia project and changes to that. There was a plan to utilize the grocery store next to the Post Office as a multi functional venue housing a Tap Bar, Groceries, and a Bike Store. That has been taken off the board and will not materialize as planned. They will have five RV pads which will include propane fire pits.

Parking of campers and RV’s was discussed. Council discussed whether the City should put a time limit on the length of time they can stay. This is an ongoing problem for both communities.

The meeting was attended by Councilors Bishop, Huey, Packard, Mayor Williams, and
numerous interested citizens.