RESOURCES: Get creative and prosper

I appreciated the letter recently suggesting using the high school baseball fields for the Legion teams. Maybe ideas like that, with wise use of under-utilized resources by different governments, make too much sense. In this time of belt tightening this will have to be the norm instead of the exception.

Mollala, Oregon, trimmed their annual budget by two thirds by doing such things as contracting out their building permit department to Clackamas County 30 miles away. Another nearby town closed their 911 dispatch center and contracted to a nearby county.

Oregon’s Lane County is aggressively marketing services to other local governments and in 2010 assumed Information Technology duties for four smaller counties. All of these actions have been a “win-win” for everyone, especially the taxpayers. But also for those areas that are often cut from the budget first like parks and recreation or under pressure in a tough economy like social services.

BOB SHILLINGSTAD

Hayden