Those historians at Pendleton City Hall have decided the city is over dependent on the Pendleton Round-Up and in desperate need of a more diverse economy if it expects our city to flourish. Increased tourism is their answer to the city’s woes.

Their latest initiative is to ban any new lighted signs and eliminate what the city refers to as light pollution, light that’s reflected up instead of down in an attempt to make stars more visible. However, absence the neon glitz of a tourist town such as Reno, Nevada, or Nashville, Tennessee, Pendleton more resembles a ghost town once the sun sets, an unintended consequence of their program and counter productive. I don’t personally believe visitors come here simply to star gaze.

In the past, the city manager, his management staff and the city council were more interested in promoting empty buildings on Main Street by subsidizing the Pendleton Downtown Association and the Pendleton Chamber of Commerce than the economic well-being of the entire city. If you haven’t yet heard, we’re losing another business, our cancer center is closing. When’s the last time you’ve heard a city councilor start a sentence with, “In my ward….? The usual topic, no matter the ward, concerns Main Street.

We’ve started a new year with a new mayor and city council. Perhaps they’ll give as much or more credence to the community at large as they do the unelected management at city hall. Their surveys, much like political polls, just don’t accurately reflect the views of the public.

Rick Rohde

Pendleton