On a pleasant Thursday morning in the middle of the Philomath Public Works Yard, longtime operations supervisor Garry Black took a few moments to read the city’s Arbor Day proclamation to a group of Philomath and Kings Valley schoolchildren.
Several yards behind him, several tables were set up with four tree varieties that would be given away to the kids with a banner showing that this is the 31st year of Philomath’s Tree City USA designation.
Gallery: City of Philomath Arbor Day Celebration (April 24, 2025)
A collection of photos from the city of Philomath’s Arbor Day celebration with schoolchildren at the Public Works yard on Thursday.
The event has been an annual tradition for the Public Works folks dating back to 2016. Black brought the idea over from a similar activity that he was involved with when working in Lebanon.
“They send us a list of trees that are for our hardiness zone,” Black said, referring to the National Arbor Day Foundation. “They have a certain list of trees that we can choose from. Lige (Weedman), our city arborist — him and I sit down and pick out the tree varieties.”
This year’s selections included tulip, Eastern redbud, white dogwood and ginkgo. The project is supported with funding from Oregon Community Trees.
“They are trees that we would select for our planter strips along the highways,” Black said. “They’re good under powerlines and stuff like that.”
Black said there are typically six or seven varieties of trees to choose from and they purposely stay away from the bigger ones.
“We don’t do evergreens because they get too big for planter strips … if they’re in yards, it doesn’t matter to us but anything along the roadway, we don’t want the big, humongous fir trees, cedar trees and stuff like that,” he said.
Black said he periodically will hear from folks who have planted the trees in their yards and see photos of them growing.
“We get 200 trees in here and if we get 10 of them to grow, I guess that’s a good number because half of them probably won’t even make it home,” Black said. “So if we can get 10 in the ground, I’m pretty happy with that — if they survive.”
The seedlings that are not given away are put to good use.
“We will take the seedlings we have and plant them in our little tree garden we have out back here,” Black said. “The mayor and the City Council are working on a tree giveaway program for residents of Philomath so those trees will go to homes here in Philomath.”
As for the Tree City USA designation, Philomath meets the four required standards put in place by the Arbor Day Foundation — maintain a tree board or department, have a public tree ordinance, spend at least $2 per resident each year on urban forestry management and celebrate Arbor Day while issuing an official proclamation.
The event with the schoolchildren was originally scheduled to take place on Friday, which was this year’s actual Arbor Day date. But Black arranged with partners and volunteers to move it up a day to Thursday with the threat of wet weather in the Friday morning forecast.
2. Music in the Park schedule
Organizers for the Music in the Park summer concert series are venturing into unknown territory this year with a restructuring of its performance dates. This summer’s events will occur on the second Wednesday in July, August and September and the fourth Sunday in June, July and August.
Since its debut in 2016, Music in the Park performances have always been on Thursday evenings. The Sunday concerts were added in 2021.
“We’re going to try that out and see how that works,” Assistant City Manager Chelsea Starner said at this month’s City Council meeting, adding that the change was a response to public feedback. “We’re trying it out — if it’s an epic fail, we’ll talk about going back to how it was.”
The Sunday concerts pretty much remain the same, although the timing has been redefined as taking place on the fourth Sunday instead of the last Sunday (which does make a difference in June with five Sundays that month).
Despite the change, the series will actually kick off on a Thursday when high school and middle school band students perform on May 22.
“The schools really needed it to be on Thursday,” Starner said. “We’ve committed to trying to work with them — whatever they need. They’re trying to schedule around a lot of different things and we’re just excited that they’re able to attend this year.”
The free concert series operates on donations to cover the cost of hiring bands to play. The band fee this year was increased from $200 to $300 for a total of $2,100 for the seven concerts. The city received a $1,200 sponsorship donation from Pioneer Connect and the Park Advisory Board was planning to seek out another $900 in donations for the series.
The concert lineup:
- Thursday, May 22 — Philomath High School and Philomath Middle School bands
- Sunday, June 22 — DTW Lite (jazz, funk)
- Wednesday, July 9 — Brutal Bridges (rockabilly, funk, alternative
- Sunday, July 27 — DRTR (blues Americana)
- Wednesday, Aug. 13 — Family Tradition (rock, alternative)
- Sunday, Aug. 24 — The Nettles (Celtic, folk jazz)
- Wednesday, Sept. 10 — Blood on the Plow (Cougar Mellencamp tribute band)
3. Getting rid of islands
City Manager Chris Workman provided the City Council with a list of 11 property “islands” that he would like to see annexed into the city. The process, which last occurred in 2018, typically comes with a certain level of opposition from the affected property owners. In short, it means they’ll be paying more in taxes.
“Property islands are created when surrounding properties are annexed into the city, leaving one or more incorporated county lots completely surrounded by city lots,” Workman wrote in a summary to councilors. “These islands have access to and receive the same city-provided benefits as neighboring properties such as public safety, public streets, bus service, nuisance enforcement, public parks, trash collection … However, they don’t help pay for these services by way of paying city property taxes.”
Workman’s report to the council was very detailed with background on past and future island annexations, impact on the property owner’s taxes and the process that will unfold in the coming months. To read Workman’s full report, click here.
Based on municipal code, the procedure for annexing island properties into the city requires approval from voters. The property owners should’ve received a notice by now and plans call for public hearings in June at the Planning Commission meeting and July in the City Council meeting. If that process moves forward without any hiccups, it would likely appear on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).