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Mayor Schaefer touts Anderson opportunities
More Anderson News The City of Anderson’s Mayor, Butch Schaefer, took full opportunity of his State of the City Luncheon address Thursday noon to tout many of the community’s accomplishments during the past calendar year.
An estimated 300 people crowded the main ballroom at the Gaia Anderson Hotel, Spa and Restaurant for the 10th annual event, jointly sponsored by the Anderson Chamber of Commerce and the City of Anderson. Because the hotel’s own kitchens are still under construction, the event was catered by Mary’s Pizza Shack. Patrons in the buffet line were served by members of Anderson Union High School’s FFA.
Seen in the audience were at least two Shasta County Superior Court Judges, most of the county’s top administrators, at least three county supervisors, city council members and staffers from Redding and the City of Shasta Lake, tribal leaders from Redding Rancheria, business owners, non-profit administrators and service club members by the dozens.
From completion in early July of the 80-unit Blue Oak Court Apartments, with 2-, 3- and 4-bedroom rent-controlled housing intended for low income families to the more recent completion of professional offices on Ganyon Drive and Ventura St., Anderson is definitely on the move, Schaefer said.
The mayor’s speech was carefully coordinated with a multi-image PowerPoint show that illustrated many of the projects as Schaefer mentioned them.
Interspersed with hundreds of still photographs were video vignettes featuring some of Anderson’s newest business owners as well as the venerable mainstays who have seen the community through good times as well as bad.
“I think Anderson really is the city of opportunity. For 35 years, it has allowed me to raise and educate my children, make a comfortable dental practice and plan for my retirement,” said long-time Anderson dentist Steve Ahrens.
“It’s exciting to see Anderson grow as the years roll by. It’s not the sleepy little town it once was,” Ahrens continued.
Restaurateur Joe Martinez, who demolished his iconic Koffee Korner on July 25, hopes to open a new and larger full-service restaurant on the same site in late November or early January.
“We’ve made a lot of good friends throughout the years,” Martinez said after watching himself on the big screen. Martinez purchased the restaurant on the corner of Ventura and North St. in Anderson in 1982.
“The town and Koffee Korner have been just fabulous to me. Anderson has really benefitted me and my four children,” Martinez said on the video.
Schaefer briefly touched on the community’s “outstanding recreation programs” offered by the Anderson Parks and Recreation, then enumerated quite a long list of public works projects, several built or planned with Redevelopment Agency grants and state Community Development Block Grants.
“Even the soft economy has led to opportunities for the city,” noted Schaefer, who said city officials have been seeking “greater efficiencies and reorganization” with fewer employees, yet using the stalled residential construction market to bid a slew of public works projects.
“The result has been a series of well-priced bids on projects that have cost far less than the engineer’s estimates,” Schaefer noted.
Among those projects was a $964,000 upgrade of the city’s water service to an area along Highway 273 that was annexed in 2003. The city also extended Fairgrounds Drive to Third St. at the cost of $350,000 and installed three “Discover Anderson” welcome signs for $74,000.
In addition, the city used $384,000 in Proposition 1B funding for some city-wide street rehabilitation, a project that took just six months from project conception to final completion.
Next month, in a cooperative venture with Shasta County and Redding through the SHASTEC redevelopment project, Anderson will solicit bids on a $1.2 million project to widen North Street from Sharon to Ravenwood.
Anderson is also currently bidding a $200,000 water project to purchase an unused irrigation lateral from the Anderson Cottonwood Irrigation District and install a new water line connection under Interstate 5 without any new digging or tunneling.
“As our presentation here today demonstrates, Anderson truly is a “City of Opportunities,” Schaefer said in his concluding remarks.
“The past year has been a good one for our community, and the city looks forward to continuing to pursue new opportunities over the next year to help bring about further progress,” he said, to resounding applause.
Posted by sickofit on September 25, 2008 at 6:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Did he tell you how understaffed and overworked the police department is? This, in spite of the recent contract when the members were "assured" they would "try" to maintain minimum staffing. On the other hand, maybe the shortage is due to the fact they are losing people BECAUSE of the current administration. They go to work for the sheriff, CHP, and return to poverty-level earnings in Trinity County. Why is it that historically, in the City of Anderson, they NEVER look at the root cause of these things. It's as simple as looking into the promotional practices in the police department for the last many years. Look at who their leaders are, and you can see why they leave. Mr. Schaefer, you are not doing your job! You blow your horn while sitting firmly astride the proverbial fence, and do nothing about the serious problems your city is facing. Time to look into management, or failure to manage in this case. You will have great difficulty when you decide to move onto bigger and better things. The dog you currently ignore will bite you firmly on your backside.
Posted by ynotsayit on September 27, 2008 at 1:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Sounds like the City of Anderson maybe becoming "the city of opportunities" for everyone except the employees that try to keep the place livable...hmmmmm Priorities...they seemed to be out of order...and infact maybe for sometime but just now becoming known.
Lets do more work with less employees. That might work with the shuffling of paper, but may not at two in the morning when more than one citizen needs assitance.
Looks to me the RISK may out-weigh the "opportunities." We all see the little town of Anderson making the paper with not so good headlines.
Posted by MrFedup on September 29, 2008 at 9:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I spoke with an officer that worked for Anderson PD in the 70's and he said they worked with two officers on a shift. Amazingly enough... they still work with two officers on s shift. How can this be! How can there be so little progression in "The city of Opportunity." I wonder if it has to do with the city management's decision to purchase $74,000 welcome signs instead of increasing public safety staffing levels. Hey Mr. Schaefer I'm reminded of what city I live in every time I mail my water bill, let's spend money on something the residents need!
Posted by skippydo on September 29, 2008 at 11:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
i wonder when apd is really understaffed, not that they aren't already, because they are, but when the crunch really hits, if mr butch will come running. if the chief will. maybe the council will help, just incase the bat phone should ring at 0330? i wonder even more if the officials/leaders even care? probably the best place for the chief is at dunken donuts.
you guys oh, and woman need to watch what is happening to your employees. they're drowning in ineffective and incompetent management. not all, but the police sure are.
Posted by watchagonado on October 1, 2008 at 10:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
After reading the above posts I find it amazing that the city is not doing more for its employees. If there are only two officers per shift what happens when one of those officers has to leave the city to go to the jail? This sounds like a very unsafe environment for the officers and for the citizens of Anderson. These are issue that must be addressed. I would be devastated to read in the paper that one of Andersons finest was hurt or killed because of the cities negligence to properly staff its PD.
I am beginning to wonder where the “opportunity” is in this city. Unless they are implying the “opportunity” is to work in a city that doesn’t care about it employees, but more concerned the signs that decorate it and making power point presentations to boast about what the council so called accomplished. Mr. Schafer did you ever think about talking to the employees of Anderson and finding out what they think should be accomplished? Stop tooting your own horn and talk to the people that make Anderson a city.
If funding is so bad that they are freezing positions why are they spending money on frivolous things? They need to focus on what is important. A city cannot function without a proper police department. Needless to say those sign and other things wont matter very much when the city is falling apart. I say we pull together as a community and fight for what we, and the employees of Anderson, deserve. Lets start with putting some people who care on the city council.
Posted by Pilot7 on October 23, 2008 at 10:40 a.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by Eejayarr on October 23, 2008 at 3:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There sure are a lot of comments above about the lack of police on the streets at any given time. I am not saying that I disagree, however I do wonder what justifies the additional manpower. Anderson is a nice, beautiful and quiet little town. I have lived here for a very long time. I have never felt any negative impact due to a lack of officers. I don't recall hearing in the news or anywhere else where this has actually been a problem. There isn't anywhere that I feel safer than I do in Anderson. I have noticed a lot of people rolling stop signs, I suppose we could use the additional officers to crack down on that. The City of Redding feels to me like a police state, they are everywhere mostly giving out traffic tickets. Maybe it is just me, but I enjoy not seeing a police car every block when I drive through Anderson. I don't feel a bit safer in Redding being surrounded by them.
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