Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Preservation Month Driving Tour topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Benton County HRC narrows plans for Preservation Month, assigns driving‑tour routes
Summary
The Benton County Historic Resource Commission set working groups, assigned routes for a county driving tour booklet and agreed a Doodle poll will schedule smaller route-review meetings so draft text and maps are ready for next month’s packet.
The Benton County Historic Resource Commission agreed on a schedule and next steps to finish a countywide driving‑tour booklet and to coordinate Preservation Month programming.
Commission Chair Autumn Peterson and staff described a plan to split the county driving tour into routes and form small working groups to check locations, imagery and text. Commissioners volunteered for route review: Jay Sexton took the South route, Bob Hamaker and others are working on the Northeast route, and commissioners agreed to split the large Northwest route so it is manageable for volunteers.
Why it matters: the driving booklet and the Preservation Month calendar are the commission’s primary public outreach tools for the year. The group said the booklet should reflect current, verifiable information about each building and include historic photographs where available.
The commission asked volunteers who will drive assigned routes to verify that listed properties are visible from the road, in the correct sequence on the map and worthy of inclusion. Staff said some list entries lack basic research and recommended removing lower‑priority properties if space is constrained. Commissioners instructed volunteers to note missing or incorrect addresses and to flag properties that lack clear historical justification.
Commissioners agreed to use a Doodle poll to set two or three small working‑group meetings the week after the session so members can report back with edits. Staff advised consolidating notes into a single PDF of annotated entries that graphic staff can use once text and map locations reach roughly final form.
Staff and commissioners discussed where a printed booklet and related digital content might live. Options mentioned included the Benton County website’s historic resources page, local museum displays with kiosks or continuously available screens, and QR codes on interpretive signs that link back to a story map or gallery. The commission asked staff to coordinate with municipal partners (Corvallis and Albany) about placement and event programming.
Several practical details were recorded: one route was reported to include about 15–20 properties and may be split in two; volunteers should prioritize and mark a clear “cut line” to leave room for higher‑priority entries; OSU and the University of Oregon were identified as photo/archive resources if digitized historic images are needed; and staff suggested a story‑map (interactive GIS) as a complement to the printed booklet.
The commission set an internal expectation that a consolidated draft (one PDF of cataloged notes and proposed text) be ready for review by the next monthly meeting so volunteers can finalize corrections and the graphic work can move forward.
Quotes and attribution in this story come from HRC members and staff present at the meeting, including Chair Autumn Peterson and staff from Benton County Community Development.
