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January 3, 2013
TUALATIN CENTENNIAL
7
Helping you, too,
live a long life
As a proud community member
for 40 years, Legacy Meridian Park
Medical Center congratulates
Tualatin on its centennial.
To help you live a long life,
try our Know Your Numbers
health screenings. We take vital
measurements and help you
understand them so you can take
steps to prevent heart disease.
Please see
www.legacyhealth.
org/classes
.
Our legacy is yours.
For more information:
503-335-3500
.
AD-0820 ©2012
Happy 100, Tualatin.
www.legacyhealth.org
408348.010313 TC
Spoiler alert: Stolze, who had never
held public office before, would be elect-
ed and serve as Tualatin mayor from
1988 to ’94. But back then, he recalled,
there were a lot of unknowns.
“As the election came closer and clos-
er, I was very aware of the old dog food
plant and the area around it had become
very dilapidated and outdated.” It was a
safety hazard and an eyesore, he said.
The first couple of runs at redevelop-
ing the downtown were probably misdi-
rected, Stolze said, remembering that
community leaders had tried to get a
Washington Square-type development
built in the center of town, but that sim-
ply wouldn’t fly. The town wasn’t big
enough to support that kind of project,
and it just fizzled.
“I ran on the slogan ’it’s time for a
change,’” Stolze said, pointing out that
after he was elected, he was eventually
embraced by city leaders who weren’t so
sure at first what this new guy was going
to be all about.
“I asked for a city meeting, and they
assured me that nobody would show up,”
said Stolze, explaining that he arranged
to get the huge Meridian Park Hospital
auditorium, which can hold a lot of peo-
ple.
“Six to seven hundred people showed
up,” he said. “It was the biggest thing
that ever happened.”
They spent the first half-hour of the
meeting discussing the urban renewal fi-
nancing method, Stolze said, and then
they started taking comments from the
public. As ideas were thrown out for con-
sideration, they were all written down —
including a suggestion from developers
that the area should include more strip
malls. Then city staffers and consultants
sat down with the elected leaders and
discussed how to incorporate all of the
ideas.
At a second meeting — also attended
by hundreds of interested citizens — the
idea of a lake was popular because it
would not only be a way to raise the ele-
vation of the entire area above the flood
level, it could also serve to add value to
the real estate and attract development.
Other decisions coming from the public
were to scratch strip malls off the list and
not to put the police department and city
hall on the lake.
All through the plan-
ning process there con-
tinued to be opposition
from business and de-
velopment interests —
including one of Tuala-
tin’s newest elected
leaders: Lou Ogden. Og-
den would eventually go
on to become mayor, but
in the beginning he was
something of an outside
agitator looking to rep-
resent the business
community — and, it
turns out, a swing vote
on the merits of the
commons project.
It was an all-night talk
between Stolze and Og-
den — during a trip to a
See COMMONS / Page 9
PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF TUALATIN
An aerial view of the Tualatin Commons shows how well
development has occurred around the manmade lake.
TIMES PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ
Brent Savage of McMinnville paddles his
way to victory in the pumpkin growers
competition race during the ninth annual
West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta at the
Tualatin Lake of the Commons this fall.