Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
The Dalles City Council had a busy session indeed last night. Under the public comment section, several businesses and organizations on Fourth Street testified against plans to close off Fourth Street for nine days during the Cherry Festival to host the carnival. That’s because the carnival’s normal site on First Street will be unavailable while the city completes the long-awaited First Street Streetscape. Work on that project begins next Monday and several blocks of First Street will be closed for up to two years.
Ellen Potter, director of The Dalles Art Center, said they’d been assured back in November that the Fourth Street option wasn’t going to considered. Based on that information, they made their plans for the year, only to hear in January that Fourth Street had been chosen after all.
“We have a large fundraiser scheduled during that closure. We cannot move it. Invitations have already gone out. And that fundraiser accounts for approximately 90 percent of our revenue for the month. It will be disastrous.”
There was no immediate response from the council.
Councilors also adopted an employment opportunity analysis and a buildable lands inventory, and heard a presentation on an offer by the University of Oregon to take part in its Sustainable City Year Program that would involve university students working on city projects for class credit. For the cost of hiring a single consultant for a single project, the city could have multiple students working on 15 projects.