By Jim Kinghorn
Whoo boy, you’ve done it now. Silverton has lost its city manager to our “almost Portland” neighbor to the north. Now, Bryan Cosgrove is way too classy to list the reasons why he threw his hat into another town’s ring, but The Man says it’s not too hard to imagine that the ‘ol job satisfaction had to be getting pretty low given the increasingly toxic political environment around here the last few years (more on that later). Being city manager is certainly not a popularity contest, but if you are glad to see Bryan heading up I-5, consider that Wilsonville had 94 qualified applicants from all over the western U.S. and he was chosen unanimously for the job. If you figure that 1/3 of the 93 losers won’t find the Silverton job a big enough plum to apply for, then we are left potentially choosing from applicants in the 30-40th place range instead of keeping the #1 choice. Somebody explain to me how that is a good thing…
At a recent meeting, Jeff DeSantis announced Seven Brides Brewing would celebrate the first anniversary of its tap room on Memorial Day weekend… You should have seen Silverton Police officer Jeff Fossholm’s face when it was announced that there would also be a “pig roast”. . .
Gene Oster wants you to know that the Portland/Silverton Monarchs football team is undefeated and still has a couple of home games left that you should attend. The Man knows this because Gene Oster told him so and Gene Oster is, oh I don’t know, about 8 feet tall so now The Man is telling you so Gene Oster won’t hurt him…
There is the church, They took off the steeple, To fix the dry rot, For all of the people…
The Man’s quote of the month: “Believe nothing, no matter where you read, or who said it – even if I have said it – unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” – The Buddha
Last month The Man reported on the annual “Lost Sock Memorial Day” and now comes word that an Australian college student surpassed the world’s smartest astrophysicists in finding the long searched for, “missing mass” in the universe… Coincidence? I think not…
‘Ya know, with all the hub-bub over the issue of the streetscape in Silverton, it occurs to The Man that whether you’re for no changes, big changes, or think that Silverton should have streets painted silver, don’t rely on the mis-information going around. Come on now, people, if you hear something at least run it through your “make sense o’meter” before you run with it. Does it make sense that a city employee would single handedly have the power, let alone the desire, to turn Silverton into a “ghost town”? The only thing Steve Kay is guilty of is doing his job. A job, I might add, he was directed to do by the urban renewal agency which is oddly enough composed of the Mayor and City Council, the very entities that have left him, until recently, hanging out to dry through this process. Does your meter still point to Steve? I hope not, because I keep hearing some people say “we need to keep Silverton, Silverton.” I suggest you think about that. Silvertonians don’t treat each other with contempt. They are friendly; they roll up their sleeves and help one another. They volunteer and they say ”hi” as they pass on the street. They may disagree, but do so respectfully, they realize that whether a street is closed or open, it’s the people that make this a special place. If we are pitted neighbor against neighbor over some concrete and innuendo, like it seems we are over every issue the last few years, only then will we ”loose Silverton.”
See you on the street (open or closed)…
