West Linn

I met Mayor Patti Galle this afternoon in her office at the West Linn City Hall. She was pretty awesome, by the way, even offering to call up the Mayor of Wilsonville if he doesn't respond my my email. Her office has two very comfortable leather chairs that looked like they came over on a wagon with the Peoria Party. She's a newly elected mayor, having just been sworn into the office last month, so hopefully the rest of her term will be filled with the really hard stuff like autographing maps and such.
I had always assumed that City Hall would be located in the old Willamette District of town down by the river. I mean, that's where all the old stuff is so you would think that West Linn City Hall would be an old 1890s victorian mansion. But no, it's up on the hill in a sort of upscale shopping mall with a nice view of Mt. Hood. It's officially the City of Hills Trees and Rivers, and some might remember the old rest area off of I-205 that they closed a few years back because of complaints of idling trucks and shady night time activities.
On my way up the hill to City Hall I noticed there's an unmistakable gap in the very expensive homes and condos that is occuppied by an actual vineyard. I don't know the story behind it, but I'm going to say that it's owned by a stalwart old codger that refuses to give up his land to development because his great-grandfather homesteaded there. And maybe he looks like Patrick Stewart.
Mayor Galle was pretty impressed with how all the signatures are starting to fill up the map, and she asked me what I was going to do with it when I was finished. Maybe the Oregon Historical Society will want it if they're into that sort of thing. I guess my first choice would be to frame it and give it to my son in hopes that Oregon will still be around in 50 years so he can follow in my footsteps for the bicentennial. That would be pretty sweet. Of course, in 50 years all the Mayors will probably be futuristic cyborgs that have mated with the hippies from Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia. I, for one, embrace our new robot/hippie overlords.
17 down, 225 to go.