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Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Nation & World Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Local Issues Obituaries Weather Archive Revels Etcetera Backpage Hot Topics Most Viewed Forum Photo Galleries Video Readers Polls O-Zone Online Games Movie Preview Special Sections Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad May 25, 2006 Essentially Ashland Awash in confusion Lance Pugh By Lance Pugh Tidings Correspondent While conversing the other night about the direction, goals, aspirations and focus of Ashland, I experienced a muffled epiphany: We waffle and weave through time, apparently leaderless and hopelessly hapless. As of this moment we still await the return to duty of our director of public works, who was sent by presidential order to the other side of the planet. We have no director of community development at a time when some unknown forces have rendered the plaza, the focal point of our community, a dustbowl of disrepair and a source of deep embarrassment. Benches are removed to a secure undisclosed location, apparently to be redeployed in a manner resembling musical chairs. One envisions Iron Mike, the metal pioneer who commands the plaza, barking new commands every few seconds to ensure that we keep moving and all remain strangers. Some merchants forget that they do not own the plaza, but benefit greatly from it. A new downtown plan has hit the ground with a thud. I’d had hopes that we’d all pull together and work it out, not call in the high-priced consultants, which we seem to do frequently. Resume stuffer I worked on the 1988 plan and, despite it being printed on high-gloss paper, never thought such a document would be the end of all thought, but only a beginning of a somewhat inspired vision. As usual, cost overruns constrained the effort, even while the printed booklet went on to serve as a resume stuffer for some. Our latest of many city administrators, related to a former city councilor, has moved on, as have a troop of others. A replacement has just arrived and I’m crossing my fingers in hope. The Ashland Fiber Network, fecund with vast possibilities, is now under the purview of a relative of our city attorney, which may well prove to be a good thing. Our police chief seems to have been marched off the plank by a mysteriously quiet mayor, this while the whole concept of law enforcement awaits clarification by someone, somewhere. So deep is the miasma that once-fired personnel get re-hired by people other than their department heads. The university searches for a new president while a rudderless town bobs and sways in a sea of confusion, secrecy and infighting. We depend on a gracious gift of two Lincoln heads while sloshing through a record-high $100 million budget, which cannot seem to get simple repairs concluded. A brew of follies But that is OK, as many at the city’s teat keep a keen eye on their retirement watches, while a considered lot of us enthuse about our latest vacation or the best meal in recent memory. We need to put the municipal contrivance in park, curb the wheels, set the emergency brake, turn off the engine and talk. If we have problems, let us talk about them as adults, then agree to take the actions necessary to solve the issues. Witnessing such a clustered brew of follies befall our fair city while crews seem ordered idle, watching vandalism through the lens of a fake camera, begging for alms to repair a severed statue from our collective past, sitting idly as a chief of police is sent packing for reasons deemed too important to share…it’s a bit much, even for those of us who have seen royal ruses, seamy shenanigans and false promises paraded through town over the last decades. I wanted to ask where the buck stops, but with $100 million on the table and so many sitting on their wallets, perhaps I should rephrase my question. Are you ready to jump into a waterless fountain and suck up to a solution? “Essentially Ashland” will appear in this space each Thursday. Lance Pugh can be reached at [email protected]. His forthcoming book is “Essentially Ashland…The Missing Years: 1971-2006.” --> Copyright © 2006 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.