As signature gatherers continue to circulate petitions around Canby to gauge public sentiment on whether the city should run its own bus service, Wilsonville is reporting record numbers of riders on its city-run buses.

Today, the Canby City Council is expected to be informed of how the process that may lead to the opting out of local Tri-Met bus service is progressing when the draft transit plan makes its debut.

As of March 2, an estimated 500 registered voters had signed petitions, which represents less than half the number of signatures needed to be presented to Tri-Met.

As required by state statute, 15 percent of registered voters within the city and its Urban Growth Boundary will need to sign the petitions, which have been circulating in neighborhoods, the downtown area, and the Canby Swim Center.

In 1999, the City Council supported legislation sponsored by state Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, which provided the city the opportunity to petition to withdraw from Tri-Met. The bill was enacted by lawmakers.

The 26-member Canby Public Transportation Task Force and its subcommittees held public meetings from September 2000 to January 2001, and Portland State University conducted the Canby Community Transportation Needs Assessment.

The withdrawal petition being taken around town states the proposed bus service: "will be as good as or better than the service we have now; will impose no new taxes; includes plans for a local shuttle service; and will not increase the employer-paid transit district taxes."

A presentation to local employers and business owners was made at the Canby Area Chamber of Commerce's March 6 luncheon. People wishing to support the city's proposal to begin a bus service at the start of next year can sign a petition at the Canby Planning Department, said Donna Borges, the city's consultant on the transit project.

"At the March 7 council meeting, we'll see how many (signatures) we have," she said. Possible crosstown routes and schedules have been considered, and grant possibilities are being explored.

Councilors are expected to soon make initial decisions on the scope and size of the bus service to be offered.

If the Canby opt out is approved by Tri-Met's board of directors in August, the city would need to lease one or more buses, contract out for staff, and establish administrative guidelines by the time the service would begin on Jan. 1, 2002.

Tri-Met may require an intergovernmental agreement to assure adequate services are provided by Canby to meet Tri-Met's standards.

Canby Planning Department Director John Williams said the city is looking at providing a service level somewhere between those offered by Wilsonville and Sandy, cities that successfully petitioned Tri-Met to opt out 10 years and two years ago, respectively. Tri-Met service is funded by the employer payroll tax, which is currently about 6 cents per $100 of an employer's payroll, Williams said.

In Canby, between $600,000 and $750,000 a year is funneled into Tri-Met by local employers, and the city believes it can offer a comparable or better service for the same amount of money.

"I think it's really important we do this," Mayor Terry Prince said during the Feb. 7 council meeting. "I think it's a win-win situation for the citizens and businesses of Canby.

I'm really excited about this . . . It's a big decision, and one that will be coming at us pretty quickly." Numerous policy, purchasing, planning and financing decisions in the opt-out process will need to be made between now and June 8, city staff said.

Proposed plans call for a local bus to regularly run back and forth to Oregon City and its Tri-Met connection, whereas the current Tri-Met service is focused on peak commuter hours, and for a bus to run throughout the community.

"The difference between Canby and Wilsonville is that, while they have similar populations, Wilsonville has a huge industrial base, which really helps the funding of SMART," Williams said.

SMART transit operations manager Steve Allen lives in Canby, and he is part of the task force crafting the city's proposed bus service. Wilsonville's SMART - South Metro Area Rapid Area Transit - recently released its 2000 ridership figures, and the statistics indicate more people than ever are using the service.

Last year's total of 190,480 passengers was more than 9 percent higher than 1999's total of 171,981. "It was more than we had anticipated," SMART transportation project coordinator Janette Palmer said.

"I think it's because of several things." Palmer said SMART received extra funding for the senior and disabled bus service, there was a change to hourly services on the commuter route to the Barbur Boulevard Transit System and the crosstown shuttle, and the commuter bus - which runs between Wilsonville and Salem during peak traffic hours - has also been a factor in increased ridership.

"It's very convenient and dependable," she said. In fact, the Salem route has become so popular that two of the trips are at full capacity, said Palmer, adding a new replacement bus will provide additional room starting in November. Wilsonville City Manager Arlene Loble said she is not surprised by the increase in riders.

"It's consistent," she said. "SMART is a definitely a good community service, and I have heard nothing but high praise for it." SMART is financed by a 0.3 percent payroll tax on local employers.

"It serves a lot of people," Loble said. "The Salem run is especially popular. It brings lots of people in and takes them out." SMART provides service on five fixed routes, as well as dial-a-ride, senior transportation and the Blazer Bus, which operates before and after every Portland Trail Blazers home game at the Rose Garden arena.

The Blazer Bus costs $5 per round-trip, and it began on a trial basis last year. "There are some faithful riders to the Blazer games," Palmer said. "It's been pretty consistent.

This has definitely been really beneficial to the businesses who are participating in the stops."

All of the SMART buses, with the exception of Route 202 to Oregon City and the dial-a-ride service, had an increase in ridership last year. Route 1X, the Wilsonville-to-Salem route, saw a passenger increase of 17 percent, the 201 route to Barbur Boulevard increased by 18 percent, the 203 bus to 95th and Commerce Circle saw an increase of 9 percent, and trips on the 204 crosstown shuttle went up 10 percent.

The senior transportation bus saw a 26 percent increase in passengers, SMART reported. Route 202 decreased by 20 percent, and dial-a-ride calls went down by 16 percent. SMART was established 10 years ago and, in that time, ridership has increased 40 fold.

"It's pretty amazing," Palmer said. "In the beginning, all there really was available was dial-a-ride service. ''Now, we have fixed routes and increased hours of operation. We offer a lot more services."

Neighbors of a potential mine just west of Canby are resolved to oppose the quarry proposal should it be made to the county this spring or summer.

So says the chairwoman of the Aurora-Butteville-Barlow Citizens Planning Organization. Adella Cramer, who lives across Knights Bridge Road from the potential mine site with husband Steve and family, said A-B-B CPO members do not want the productive farmland to be allowed to be turned into a quarry.

"The bottom line is we don't want them to come into our neighborhood and mine," said Cramer, adding that seven or eight mine sites of various sizes already exist within the A-B-B CPO's boundaries.

Almost a year ago, three Oregon Asphaltic Paving Co. representatives discussed the firm's proposal to extract gravel from a 96-acre mine north of Hoffman's Dairy Garden.

About 25 citizens, mostly people living or working close to the proposed mine site, aired questions and concerns at a March 2000 meeting regarding roads, traffic, safety, noise, dust, potential well water contamination, wetlands, wildlife, flooding, site access, reclamation, future use, DEQ standards, geological tests and hydrological studies.

The company announced it eventually plans to mine 300,000 tons of aggregate annually for 10 years at the site. The gravel would be extracted to a depth of 40 feet, and it would be used at the company's highway asphalt-making hotplants in Gresham and Tualatin, officials reported.

Oregon Asphaltic said at the time it intends to leave behind two large ponds as its reclamation effort, which it hopes to donate to the state of Oregon to unify with a state park and rookery to the north of the site. Oregon Asphaltic has yet to make a formal application with the Clackamas County Planning Department, county planner Gary Naylor reported last week.

Cramer said the company, which sends a representative to the A-B-B CPO's monthly meetings at Cutsforth's Old Town Hall, is expected to make an application in May or June. Company president Tony Urbanek told attendees of a two-hour March 27, 2000, meeting that he thought the application would be made by late spring of that year.

"The company told us they are in no rush to start mining in our area yet as they have many mines in the Portland area," Cramer said. "We still don't know when they are going to apply."

And time may be even less pressing in light of the good news one of Oregon Asphaltic's sister companies received from Clackamas County last month.

Tigard Sand & Gravel may start mining again at the Stafford Quarry, northeast of Wilsonville, Clackamas County hearings officer Larry Epstein ruled Feb. 9.

In his decision, Epstein cited the need to apply a law passed in the 1999 Oregon Legislature which established a new set of rules for quarries, and how and when they should no longer be considered abandoned. Members of the Stafford Alliance for the Environment remain concerned the quarry could spoil their water wells, create dust and noise, cause traffic and safety problems, and make their homes hard to sell, said SAFE member Marge Easley.

SAFE plans to continue its expensive nine-year fight against the quarry. Bob Van Brocklin, an attorney representing Tigard Sand & Gravel, said the county decision includes conditions to protect neighbors of the quarry, and that the company plans to comply with them. He denied the quarry will affect well water supplies.

The fight over the Stafford Quarry began in 1992, when SAFE members say mining resumed after an eight-year hiatus.

The group successfully persuaded a county hearings officer in 1996 that the quarry had been abandoned, as defined by county law, and therefore should no longer be permitted to operate.

The decision was upheld by the Land Use Board of Appeals and the State Court of Appeals, but House Bill 2419 changed the legal situation. Just south on Interstate 5 near Canby, Oregon Asphaltic previously submitted a conditional use permit application for its potential mine to Clackamas County Hearings Officer Rich Crist in 1989, but it was denied because the land is designated Exclusive Farming Use.

However, since Goal 5 was enacted by the state in the mid-1990s, aggregate is recognized as a valuable resource, and gravel mining is often approved on EFU land if certain conditions are met. Oregon Asphaltic owns a 181.5-acre site just north of Knights Bridge Road, west of Barlow Road and Fawver Road.

The northern part of the site nestles between the Pudding and Molalla rivers.

Its initial plans called for: excavation buffers to be maintained during mining; a 200-foot buffer from the Pudding River; a 50-foot buffer from the west wetland channel, except at the wetland mitigation site; a 25-foot buffer from the east wetland channel and remaining wetlands, except at the connection between the two ponds.

The company said in March 2000 it would want to operate the future mine from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Citizens - then and now - worry about increased truck traffic along Knights Bridge Road, a major thoroughfare for school buses, commuters and all other traffic accessing I-5.

Roadway flooding, congestion, speed and the tightness of the 90-degree curve were all voiced as potential dangers when combined with daily rush-hour truck traffic.

Company representatives said they were as concerned about safety as much as local residents. Residents also continue to be concerned over the threat of well water contamination, as most local residents use wells dug 15 feet to 20 feet underground and do not have the option of hooking up to the city of Canby's water supply, Cramer said.

Residents also said the dust, traffic and noise from truck back-up beepers, the rock crusher and conveyor belts could all have a negative effect on nearby flower, nursery and produce-growing businesses, as well as residential property values.

"At least two neighbors are planning to sell their homes, and one has been on the market for over a year," Cramer said. "They were told by a Realtor that a mine could create a difficulty in finding a buyer." The firm's contracted hydrologist and geologist attended the CPO's May 8 meeting to address people's water and land concerns.

The company also said it was working closely with the state departments of fisheries, wildlife and marine fisheries to minimize the proposed mine's impact. "None of our fears were alleviated by the company's experts," Cramer said.

"We have voiced our concerns many times, over and over again." Cramer, who expressed disappointment regarding dwindling numbers of members attending recent A-B-B CPO meetings, said she and others are prepared fight for the fertile parcel of farmland in the northern Willamette Valley.

"We need our gravel, but we also need our farmland," an A-B-B CPO member said at last March's meeting. "That land can be profitable. It can be valuable also."