To the editor:
April Fools Day just happened and will happen again from 4-7 p.m. Thursday, April 3, at Newport city hall when the next installment of the magical mystery tour happens again.
The mystery is how an inept proposed plan to spend $12-14 million in taxes by expanding what is not working. The areas that need to be removed could be purchased for less than $4 million, made into parking, small shops, or farmers market type space without making a one-way couplet.
The majority of businesses in that area are not in favor of this less-than-adequate plan. Somehow people have been told that the Oregon Department of Transportation has promised millions of tax dollars to partially pay for this. Developers will come in and build buildings that rent will not cover, along with no dedicated parking for workers or imaginary tenants. Trees will sprout, grand sidewalks for a couple of blocks, all the while 24-hour traffic and noise will go by two streets.
No thought of how to access going south on Highway 101 from the residents southeast of the highway. What about needed traffic lights? Too conceptional now to be bothered by that. Just the expense of losing and removing the taxpayer paid parking lot where the Newport Farmers Market pays to use is more costly than the couple of teardowns.
The best solution is one they refuse to acknowledge. One that was proposed 35 years ago and would have worked.
Take the dangerous and flow limiting parallel parking off Highway 101, use that space created to add a turn lane. No need to have a staggered stop light, no blocking traffic to turn right or left into businesses or side streets. No need to waste 12-14 million badly needed dollars elsewhere in the city. No need to make the city less livable. No need to keep this costly forced mystery tour going. Get back to the real problems facing us.
— Jeff Bertuleit/Newport
