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2019 Mayor’s Letter

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Siletz Community,

I want to thank you for the overwhelming amount of support in this new chapter of my life as I learn to be the mayor of our wonderful community. I have lived in Siletz my entire life and truly love our community. I believe it is one of the greatest places to grow up and to raise a family. We are all truly blessed to call this place home.

When I first decided to run for the position of Mayor of Siletz, I was very clear on my vision for this community. That vison has not changed. I believe the key functions to anything positive in life is a combination of support, relationships, communication and transparency. Some of these basic functions have not been a part of the overall vision of the Siletz City Government in past years, but it will be going forward. I have made it a priority to share information with our community and head in a direction that gives community members a sense of partnership.

If you have been to any of our recent City Council meetings you will have heard members of the current City Council and I say, “the past is just that, it’s the past and it is behind us.” We need to be looking to the future and the direction we want Siletz to go and we as the Siletz Community have a say in that. We need to decide what needs done to make Siletz all we want it to be and we need to do this together. Find ways to fix the things that need fixing. We need to look at what we are leaving for the next generation of Siletz community members and not be short sighted in our work.

I believe that the place to start rebuilding is internally. If the people that make up our City Government and the employees within our city are not on the same page, with goals to do great things and work together to make those great things a reality, we have lost before we ever start. Luckily, we have some great people in our City Government and working as City employees that also want to see change for the better. I believe we are all coming together, and this will allow us to make big things happen. There are many ideas on how to make the City of Siletz more efficient and these ideas will be rolled out as they become reality.

We have small projects happening now and more planned for the near future. The purpose of these small projects has been to make some needed changes immediately and to let people see that we are changing, and that people do care about what is happening in our community.

These projects include:

  • We are picking up where Mayor Robinson left off to make sure we have the right people in place to have a comprehensive Emergency Management Team. As we get the right people in the right positions, we will be working with outside agencies to make certain our partnerships are as strong as possible.
  • We recently installed a bus shelter between City Hall and the Siletz Valley Fire Department. This eliminates the need for the County Bus to stop on main street and more importantly, removed the old bus stop from the library. The sidewalks were simply too narrow to support a legal bus stop and our City streets are already cramped with little parking and poor visibility at cross walks. This also gave us a great reason to open communications with Lincoln County Transit and The Siletz Public Library and build some better relationships through communication.
  • We have installed a shelter at Hee Hee Illahee Park for fishermen to be out of the weather as they wait for their ride. We will do the same at Old Mill Park (Green thumb) in the future. These may seem like small items, but many of the folks waiting for a ride (in the rain) at our parks are from other communities. I for one would like folks that visit Siletz to leave with great thoughts of our little community.
  • Working with local youth sports programs and community volunteers, we redesigned the City of Siletz Baseball field and are beginning stage two of this renovation soon. The renovation will beautify an area of Siletz that draws community together and expands the field to include all ages. The youth field is redesigned slightly. We have the equipment to expand the area back into an adult field as well. And finally, a T ball field will be installed soon.
  • To enhance communications with the community we are in the process of building an Informational page for City of Siletz on Facebook. We will be able to use this page to inform our community of upcoming event and meetings, issues we are facing, community recognition and many other things. Perhaps in the future you will see things like “facebook live” to document meetings and a place to read city council minutes. It will be a work in progress and will expand as your City Government deems appropriate.

Projects for the future:

We have just begun communications with staff from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Port of Toledo, the State of Oregon Marine Board and special interest groups to start securing money for a rebuild of the Old Mill Park (AKA Green Thumb Park). This park needs renovated from the ground up and it will take some great partnerships to make this happen. To continue to boast about being a “fishing paradise” we need to have quality boat ramps for continued access to the beautiful Siletz river. This is high on the list for the City Council as well as the parks department.

After I was sworn in, it was explained to me that we are several years behind in rebuilding a large (and expensive) portion of our City sewer system to the tune of over 7 million dollars. This will take tax money, grant money, partnerships with other local entities and a lot of hard work to accomplish. However, with open minds willing to think outside the box and a willingness to work together for the betterment of our community, we can make this project a reality before we start having breakdowns in the system or a catastrophic failure. This is not an optional project. This is a past due project that is the responsibility of the City of Siletz and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. We must work together to make this a reality.

I believe that there are far too many great people in the Siletz community to get in the way of progress and change, as long as that progress and change makes sense and it is for the people.

I hope I am doing a good job for our community so far. I truly want to do this job well for all of you. My desire is not to simply hold an office, but to represent this community well and make things happen.

I encourage you to reach out to me if you would like to talk with me. I am a very open person and will happily schedule time with you.

 

Enjoy your summer Siletz Community,

 

Mayor Will Worman

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