“Community Effort, Planning, Traits of All American City Cottage Grove,” by Phil Cogswell, Oregonian 21 March 1969
Used with permission from The Oregonian.
The little city of Cottage Grove is neither especially rich nor naturally pretty, but its present leaders believe that it has a lot of potential.
Their efforts in the past several years to overcome a civic lethargy and realize that potential have resulted in Cottage Grove being named an All-American City, one of 11 this year in the United States.
The only other West Coast winners of the award this year are San Diego, Calif., and Fairbanks, Alaska. The winning cities are picked by the National Municipal League and Look Magazine. Cottage Grove, with a population of about 5,500, was the smallest finalist for the honor, sought by over 150 cities.
“The principal thing we have done is involve a lot of people in what we have accomplished,” commented Mayor Orlo Bagley.
“For a long time it’s been difficult to get people enthusiastic about Cottage Grove; they’ve been apathetic,” Bagley said.
That apathetic feeling started to wane about 1964 when a new city charter was approved by the voters and a city council was elected composed of relatively young, forward-looking residents.
“From then on it’s been a rather frantic pace around here,” said City Manager Larry L. Rice, whose office was created by the new charter.
“Things really began to move,” Rice said. “I think the reason they began to move is that the council began to push for new programs.”
The attitude the council took in attempting to solve problems was summed up in a presentation by the city in the All-American selection jury. “We feel that nothing new will come unless attempted; and if the results are different from current failings � they are probably better.”
Rice said the All-American selection was based primarily on six accomplishments by the city: development of a comprehensive plan, construction of a three-stage sewage treatment plant, a program to obtain parkland along the Willamette River, participation in a low-rent housing plan for a deteriorated residential area, and a police-school relations project.
Residents Lend Co-Operation
The preparation of the comprehensive plan required the efforts of 40 residents over a period of five months, Rice said.
“They hashed out what they wanted the town to be like. It was done by the people, not by the staff,” he said. The city manager also noted the plan was based on current realities and what was possible, not nebulous ideas.
From the citizen advisory committee came 40 firm recommendations, half of which are now either completed or under way. The advisory committee, itself, became a permanent “Metropolitan Committee” to study and take stands on community issues and to continue to pressure for action.
One imaginative proposal was the police school program aimed at fostering an understanding of the police among grade school children before they tend to become suspicious of all authority.
Under the program one officer from the seven-man police force is assigned to work full-time with the area’s ten grade schools. The officer, Sgt. Ivan Saunders, talks to the school children about traffic safety, tobacco and narcotics, duties of police departments and similar subjects.
Communications Barrier Overcome
“The program has really taken hold; the attitude of children and parents has changed immensely. I think we have overcome the communications barrier,” Saunders said.
Saunders’ efforts have been so effective that a secretary is required to answer the letters from the school children.
City authorities believe that the police-school program, now in its second year, is the only one of its kind in the nation.
The retirement home, financed by a $1 million bond issue sold by the Lane County Housing Authority, came from a recognition that Cottage Grove has one of the highest percentages of low-income families in the state.
Two weeks after the mayor, city manager and authority officials discussed the possibility of a low-rent building, a loan application had been filed with the federal government, a housing code had been developed and an advisory board had been appointed. Construction of the six-story, 60-unit building started seven months after the application was approved.
The city also had participated in a low-rent leased housing project which is tied in with the demolition of dangerous housing.
The city’s tertiary sewage treatment is one of the first of its kind in the United States and is so efficient that at dedication ceremonies last year Gov. Tom McCall drank a glass of effluent from the plant. It was financed by a bond issue approved by a 5-1 majority of voters who recognized that the city’s one-stage plant contributed to Willamette River pollution.
City officials are quick to point out that the community has not solved all its problems.
“It will take a lot of time to catch up with the things that should have been done years ago,” Rice commented.
Among projects still to be accomplished, according to Mayor Bagley, are renovation of the downtown core and acquisition of off-street parking.
The locally sponsored and self-financed urban renewal project is the target of a court suit which has delayed the sale of bonds. Another remaining problem, common to much of Oregon, is that of school financing.
