Vote for Evans
for school board

I would like to voice my support for Barbara Evans, a candidate for Position 7 of the Canby School District Board of Directors. I have known Barbara for six years and have been impressed with her involvement and service in the community.

She isn't afraid to stand up for what is right and make things happen. She is a woman of integrity and isn't afraid of hard work and giving her all, and produces high quality results in all her endeavors.

I think Canby would be well served by this candidate.
Shelly A. Hill
Aurora

Man's dedication
is second to none

I walk my dog daily in Wyman Park on North Maple Street and I have watched a volunteer, Paul Masterson, spend hours and hours to shape up the ball fields.

He has hauled in dirt to fill the infields, rototilled, leveled and put the fields in A-1 condition for the coming baseball season.

The parents and their kids should honor him with respect and with their hearty "thank yous, well dones."

I understand he also works with Canby Kids. Such dedication is really exceptional. His job was tedious, and I'm talking about days and days - not a few hours a week.
Edith Carpenter
Canby

Vote No on Canby
Fire District bond

My first thought is what a good job the Canby Fire Department and its volunteers do. They have been outstanding. But, when I first heard about Ballot Measure 3-32, I thought if the community doesn't grow - which the fire department seems to support - why would we need all these additional people?

With the City Council's latest vote, it appears growth will be slow. It appears the Fire Department is well off already. Their fleet of 20 vehicles shows nine that are 1999 or newer. They also have a new fire station.

Shortly, they also will have a new communications system that cost more than $600,000.

All of these things have been cash purchases. There is no debt. It makes me wonder that perhaps instead of a bond there should be a reduction in the fire rates we now pay. If this bond were a major concern, I would think they would not have spent all their money on the above-mentioned items.
E. Wayne Oliver
Canby

Council is standing
up for taxpayers

Canby's mayor and City Council are not the "bad guys" here.

I was amazed at the pressure a small group of people put on the mayor and council. The state made it mandatory that the council pick one of two methods of paying back this loan: Urban Renewal District or Advanced Financing District.

URD is taxes, and AFD would obtain a loan to build the road to be paid back by assessment to the property owners in the affected area. This assessment to be paid at the time of completion or carried on the books until development, then paid off plus interest.

Which method do you think the average taxpayer would have the council make for them? The IAA insisted "no AFD," so where does that leave the council? I think the mayor and council should be applauded for standing up for the average "Joe" taxpayer.
Leonard Walker
Canby

Barbara Evans
deserves our vote

It is again time for us to consider candidates for the important positions of our school boards. We would like to urge Charbonneau residents, and others voting in the Canby School Board election, to support Barbara L. Evans for position 7.

We have known Barbara, her husband Ken, and family for nearly 20 years. We have had a firsthand opportunity to observe Barbara's dedication to her children and her support of children's issues through her past involvement in the school system in the Canby School District.

If you will take a moment to read Barbara's statement in the Voters Pamphlet (page 20), you will see that she has the necessary occupational and educational background to provide practical experience to this position.

New added emphases is being placed on our schools and the education of our children by our new president. Many new challenges await the incoming school board members. We believe Barbara would be very capable in meeting those challenges and in providing leadership to guide our children's future educational direction in the Canby district.
Keith & Dolores Simmons
Wilsonville

Canby City Council
is being shortsighted

We, as future industrial property owners, formed an association so we could work together, as one, with this city's leadership to help build out the best and most desirable industrial park Canby could offer.

We knew that by making this commitment it meant drastic changes in the way of life many of us have known for decades. That commitment meant, with annexation into the city and the change in zoning, the devaluation of our homes, the expense of switching to Canby's utility services, the increase in property taxes to the city's higher rate, the payment of all back taxes to the county for farm deferral, and the knowledge that a 74-foot major collector road was going to go through our backyards, over our wells and disrupt our farming practices.

Was it a hard commitment to make? You bet it was, but we made it thinking that if we could help this city by cooperating as a whole, Sequoia Parkway could be constructed efficiently, economically and to its best potential - a road everyone could take pride in.

We live outside the city limits. We have no voice in city elections. We have, though, participated in this community in one way or another all our lives. With the Urban Reneal Task Force drawing up the URD plan, and the URD Advisory Committee recommending to the council that tax increment monies would be best spent upfront, building Sequoia Parkway to jump-start much-needed industry and high-paying jobs in this town, we wanted to cooperate in the process.

We see the imbalance of residential to industrial properties. The strain on public services grows with each house built. The downtown core has taken a huge hit as citizens leave Canby every day to work and spend their working dollars in other communities. Business owners have spent time and money competing for those dollars and saw help on the horizon with future tax increment monies generated by the URD. If one looks at the projects included in the URD plan, you can see a variety of improvements planned to benefit all citizens.

This town is bleeding. Long-term care is needed to rehabilitate and stop that bleeding. To slap on a Band-aid and think it's going to work is shortsighted.

We're sorry if the majority of the City Council feels the offer of 6.1 acres of land we were willing to dedicate for right-of-way for the extension of Sequoia and Southeast Fourth Avenue (worth an estimated $734,000, or roughly 30 percent of the construction cost) was not a large enough contribution.

We felt all along this was a partnership to build a road not only to help entice future businesses (such as Milgard Manufacturing) and bring a better balance to this community, but a road that would be used by all citizens to access the southeast portion of the city.

How much is enough? We are not developers, we are simply people who have lived in Canby, in some cases all our lives, that now could contribute and have a voice in the future of their town.

The council's 4-2 decision to drop the application for a loan from the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department to help finance Sequoia slammed the door on the best source of money needed to help Canby's industrial park proceed.

Why care?

The clock is ticking. Without this industrial park, and by just doing nothing, this city is getting further down the rabbit role financially.
Lisa Weygandt
Canby

Hateful diatribes
serve no purpose

I have read Pat Smith's fear-mongering diatribes with lies and half-truths for years without responding. I guess I felt I should not honor it by writing back, or that at some point her venom toward public education was bound to die out. But, for whatever reason, her last letter was too much to take without a retort.

I taught social studies at Canby High School for 31 years, and was a member of CEA, OEA and NEA. I was stunned to learn from Pat Smith that my national professional organization was led by the Gay and Lesbian Caucus. No one had told me that before! That must mean that I and my fellow teachers have been duped all these years.

I paid my union dues and then freely and separately donated my money to People for the Improvement of Education (PIE), a political action committee that I thought used my money to support candidates and causes that improved the overall environment and quality of education. Now I learn from Pat Smith that instead taxpayers' money was used. Isn't that illegal? What was my PIE money used for then?

As a social studies teacher I thought I had taught good citizenship by trying to instill such values as open-mindedness, equity, fairness, tolerance, acceptance, truth and the Golden Rule. But to my surprise, I learned from Pat Smith that instead I had been actively promoting homosexuality. I didn't realize this was my hidden agenda. It is amazing how someone from the outside knows much more of what is going on than those right in the thick of it.

When I first started at Canby High, my department head warned me to be careful about discussing Communism because a few years earlier his job had been threatened for doing so. Well, it would have been difficult to teach comparative government and American foreign policy without learning about Communism. The same goes for teaching about civil rights without mentioning the Nazis and the KKK.

Learning about Communism does not mean that students are being pressured to become little Communists. I taught about the real world and a teacher's job is to create awareness and understanding of issues so that students can make informed decisions, not decisions based on fear.

Pat Smith sounded so tired because we will have to go through the initiative process again. Me, too. Here we finally agree. This homophobic fear projected by the OCA and Pat Smith is nearly pathological and the idea that schools are bent on promoting homosexuality is absurd.

Homosexuality was rarely discussed in my class until the OCA made an issue of it. If teachers were as influential as she thinks we are, then certainly there would be statistics showing a huge increase in the number of gays and lesbians graduating from Canby High School.

Why can't they let go of this issue? The problem is not with CEA, OEA or NEA, but with the OCA and people like Pat Smith. Maybe they need to look inward to find the answer. I look forward to the day when the OCA and Pat Smith have a positive agenda promoting peace, harmony and goodwill.
RoeAnn Sparks
Canby