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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Our View: Two-wheel transit ... Guest Opinion: Iran agreement has potential ... Guest Opinion: Build Phillips Field for both sports ... Our View: Two-wheel transit ... Guest Opinion: Iran agreement has potential ... Guest Opinion: Build Phillips Field for both sports ... EDITOR'S NOTES Ashland by the numbers Comment By Bert Etling Ashland Daily Tidings DailyTidings.com By Bert Etling Ashland Daily Tidings Posted May. 14, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Bert Etling Ashland Daily Tidings Posted May. 14, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News Budget bits: Quick, how many miles of paved streets does Ashland have? 92. That’s just one of the tidbits tucked away in the 374-page proposed budget. It’s handy for a newbie like me to know Ashland, founded in 1874, has 20,340 people living in 6.52 square miles at 1,900-foot elevation that gets, on average, 18 inches of rain per year (incredibly, that’s less than the 21-inch average in my old home on California’s Central Coast). More to the point — this is about the budget, isn’t it? — the budget proposes spending a two-year total of $237 million, an increase of $35 million (about 15 percent) of the current, nearly expired two-year budget for 2013-15. The increase is due primarily, the city announced, to increased capital projects spending in Public Works for water and waste-water projects. The second of three Budget Committee meetings starts at 6 p.m. today, May 14, in the Council Chamber at 1175 East Main St. Today’s focus is on community development and public works. Budget Committee review wraps up next Thursday, May 21, at the same time and place. Public comment is taken at all meetings. Final approval is up to the City Council, which has its regular monthly meetings on June 2 and 16, but its power to modify what the committee has approved has some limits. There’s lots more information online on the city website, www.ashland.or.us . You can watch committee and council meetings live on cable Channel 9 (with replays on Channel 14), and see them stream live over the web. Archived videos are also available online. • • • Mrs. Skinner was right. My eighth-grade English teacher was a severe, taciturn, no-nonsense, old-school instructor. I now know enough to thank her — just as she said I and the others in the class would someday. She taught us to diagram sentences, to write a page full of sentences with every sentence beginning with a different letter and to spell correctly. This comes to mind after, first, seeing “Sentence Diagramming Slam” on the schedule for this week’s eighth annual Southern Oregon Arts & Research showcase and, second, having sentence diagramming come up during the fourth and penultimate session of “Community Journalism in Practice: A Day in the Life of Ashland,” a class I’m teaching at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. We were editing a submission for the class and a question came up about comma placement, which would differ depending on the pronoun to which the clause in question referred. This is when you need to whip out the old diagramming widget to clarify which part of the sentence is a non-essential clause needing commas. Unfortunately, the “slam” was going on at the same time as the class Wednesday morning, so we missed it. But Mrs. Skinner, wherever she is, would be pleased to know tools she taught are still valued for everyday use. Thank you; you were right, Mrs. S. • • • Community coffee time: I’ll be on the patio from 10 to 11 a.m. Thursday, May 21, at Ruby’s restaurant, 163 N. Pioneer St. These informal meetings on the third Thursday of each month are an opportunity for you to offer suggestions and observations about Ashland in general and the Tidings in particular. We don’t have any particular agenda. Have questions? My phone and email are listed below. We hope you can make it. Reach Daily Tidings editor Bert Etling at [email protected] or 541-631-1313. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/betling . By Bert Etling Ashland Daily Tidings DailyTidings.com By Bert Etling Ashland Daily Tidings Posted May. 14, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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