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Bill Currier Newsletter — October 12, 2026
Mayor Bill Currier • Adair Village Weekly Update • October 12, 2026
Hello, friends and neighbors,
The surest sign of the season this week was not the weather report. It was City Hall posting the fall leaf collection schedule on Wednesday, with the first pickup set for Monday, October 26. That practical bit of housekeeping headlines a week that also closed the book on our transportation code hearing, put a school funding renewal on course for November ballots, and started the countdown to a possible city workers' strike next door in Corvallis. Today also happens to be Indigenous Peoples' Day, and there is a meaningful way to mark it just down the road. Let's get into it.
🚨 Public Safety
🔹 Sixty seconds that could matter most, Thursday at 10:15 a.m.: The Great Oregon ShakeOut is this Thursday, October 15, at 10:15 a.m., when people across Oregon and millions more around the world will practice the same three moves: drop, cover, and hold on. Registration is free and open to households, schools, and businesses, and wherever you are at 10:15, the drill takes about a minute.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: I spent my early career as a police officer, and that work taught me a simple truth: emergencies reward the people who practiced before one arrived. We live in earthquake country, and a sixty-second drill is the cheapest insurance you will ever carry. While you are at it, confirm your household still has a meeting spot and a few days of water on hand.
👉 Register for the ShakeOut drill
💼 Economic Development
🔹 Two days until the strike deadline next door: Corvallis city workers represented by AFSCME still plan to walk out on Wednesday, October 14, and mediation continues as that date approaches. The city has published its contract offer publicly, and reported figures put the city at 12 percent in cost-of-living raises over a three-year contract against a union ask near 14 percent plus a new longevity step. The city says it is preparing contingency plans to keep core services running if the walkout happens.
→ 💡 What this means: Plenty of our residents work in Corvallis or rely on its counters, parks, and programs every week, so what happens Wednesday will be felt here. I said it last week and will say it again: I hope the remaining gap closes at the bargaining table, not on the picket line.
👉 Read the city's contract update
🔹 Corvallis leases its way out of a space crunch: On Monday, October 5, the Corvallis City Council voted 6 to 3 to let its city manager sign office leases of up to five years without returning for further approval, at an estimated cost of about $2 million a year. The backdrop is a building that was constructed as a church in 1924, became a "temporary" City Hall in 1948, and now anchors a debate over a proposed $200 million civic campus while the city faces an $8.1 million budget gap. The same night, the council voted unanimously to bring in an outside consultant to lead public engagement on the city's revenue needs.
→ 🗣️ My take: That last vote may prove the most important one. Big facility decisions and big tax questions only earn public trust when the public is brought along first, and I have made the same argument here about engagement before taxation. Decisions of this size next door ripple into every community that trades, works, and shops there, so I am watching closely.
🏘️ Community Development
🔹 The transportation hearing is behind us. Here is what comes next: On Tuesday, October 6, the City Council held its public hearing on DCA-26-01, the amendments that turn our adopted Transportation System Plan into enforceable standards for streets, sidewalks, bicycle facilities, and neighborhood connections. That hearing closed out a public process that began with the Planning Commission in September, and I am grateful to everyone who weighed in along the way, in person or in writing.
→ ➡️ What happens next: The meeting minutes and final adopted language will post to the City website, and I will share a plain-English rundown of what changed in a future edition. Until then, the full October 6 packet remains available for anyone who wants the complete picture.
👉 View the October 6 meeting packet
🔹 A school funding renewal heads for your November ballot: Measure 2-160 would renew the Corvallis School District's local option levy at the same $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed value that voters have approved every five years for two decades, most recently with more than 70 percent support. The levy pays for things state funding does not stretch to cover: elementary music, PE, and art teachers, career-technical programs, school counselors, and smaller class sizes. The Advocate sat down with a school board member and current and past teachers' union presidents for a 35-minute interview that walks through the details.
→ 💡 What this means: This is a renewal of an existing rate, not a new one, and because the district serves Adair Village families, many of you will see it on the November 3 ballot. My job is not to tell you how to vote; it is to make sure you have the facts before ballots arrive. And a reminder for the civically ambitious: the district is still recruiting three citizen volunteers for its Budget Committee, with applications first reviewed on October 29.
👉 Watch the Measure 2-160 interview
🏗️ Infrastructure & Utilities
🔹 Leaf season now has a schedule. Mark these Mondays: City Hall posted the fall leaf collection and street sweeping schedule on Wednesday. Leaf pickups run on five Mondays: October 26, November 9, November 23, December 7, and December 21, with street sweeping following on Tuesday, November 10 and Tuesday, December 8. Rake your leaves to the street shortly before each pickup date, keep piles clear of bike lanes, storm drains, and driveways, and move vehicles off the street on pickup and sweeping days. Parking is available at City Hall if you need it.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: A pile of wet leaves over a storm drain is how a routine November rain becomes a flooded street. This schedule is the cheapest flood prevention we have, and it only works if we all do our part on the right Mondays.
👉 See the leaf collection schedule
🔹 A $70 million lesson parked off Interstate 5: On Thursday, state transportation staff briefed the Oregon Transportation Commission on two rail shipping centers funded from the Legislature's big 2017 transportation package, and the update was sobering. The Mid-Willamette Valley Intermodal Center in Millersburg, just up the valley from us, was promised as a way to take up to 150 semi-trucks a day off Interstate 5. It was finished in November 2022, ten months late and $10 million over budget, and today a roofing company moves a few train cars of material through it each week. "Unfortunately, they ran into some operational challenges," the department's planning manager told commissioners.
→ 🗣️ My take: Public infrastructure dollars deserve follow-through, period. I think about this every time our small city applies for grant funding: we account for every dollar and deliver what we promised, because that track record is what earns the next investment. The state owes taxpayers the same discipline. One related reminder: the comment window on the state's data center findings stays open through October 24.
👉 Read the rail projects story
📅 Dates & Community Moments
🔹 Indigenous Peoples' Day is today: Monday, October 12 is Indigenous Peoples' Day, a moment to honor the Kalapuya and all Native peoples whose homelands include this valley. The observance got an early start last Thursday, when OSU's Dr. Luhui Whitebear spoke at the Corvallis Museum on how language in the nation's founding documents still shapes Native communities today. Tonight at 5 p.m., the kaku-ixt mana ina haws at 311 SW 26th Street in Corvallis hosts an artist talk by Klamath Modoc artist Ka'ila Farrell-Smith, followed by Indigenous Peoples' Day proclamation signings by the City of Corvallis and Oregon State University. Everyone is welcome.
🔹 Third Thursday brings the Arts Walk, and the clock runs out on greener trips: The Corvallis Arts Walk returns this Thursday, October 15, from 4 to 8 p.m., and the Get There Challenge is in its final week, so log those walking, biking, carpool, and transit trips while they still count. For everything else happening nearby, the Advocate's weekly calendar is the best single stop.
👉 Browse the Friday to Friday calendar
🤝 In Closing
This week asks little of you and gives a lot back: sixty seconds under a sturdy table on Thursday, a rake by the curb before October 26, and a few minutes with the facts before ballots arrive. Small acts, done together, are most of what good local government actually is. If anything above raises a question, reply to this email and it will reach me, or call City Hall at 541-745-5507, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
It is a privilege to do this work in a town that pays attention.
Bill Currier
Mayor, City of Adair Village
