COOS BAY - Mayor Jeff McKeown called for community collaboration and thoughtful city planning as he predicted better times ahead for Coos Bay in his State of the City Address on Tuesday. He pointed to rising real estate values as evidence of an impending boom, bringing with it a number of challenges for city officials and staff.

“We've been discovered,” he said. “We must plan for growth. We have to anticipate that it will include paying for growth, paying for additional staffing and asking ourselves ‘what do we want out community to look like?'”

Creating new jobs, providing low-income housing and revitalizing downtown districts were among the projects McKeown said he would tackle as mayor. He also emphasized the importance of working together as a city and as a county.

“We need to bring our entire, bigger community together. Be as effective as we can,” he said. “Perhaps there are ways to share services, share staff. We should not compete against each other, but work together.”

While envisioning new families moving into the area, attracted by an improving economy, McKeown emphasized the need to remember those who are all ready here. He mentioned that about 60 percent of students in the Coos Bay school district qualify for free and reduced lunches, meaning their families earn wages close to or below the poverty line.

“That is not the way we want our community to function,” he said.

His solution was to encourage the construction of low-income housing so young families can buy a home, rather than spend much of their paycheck on rent.

Instead of waiting for the economy to improve, McKeown called for upgrading the appearance of the city's downtown districts, including the waterfront areas in Coos Bay and Empire. Such improvements would increase the likelihood of affluent visitors stopping in at local stores.

“From the time people land at the airport in North Bend and drive down to Bandon Dunes, we get one look from them,” he said. “We look a little better, but not as good as I would like.”

Managing these and other improvements, McKeown said, would require an increase in the number of staff on the city payrolls.

“We need to have adequate staff not just to take care of the citizens who are all ready here, but also for the ones who are coming here,” he said.

He also noted that a burgeoning city would need an active citizenry to help determine what areas to develop.

In summation, McKeown referenced a discussion he had with Meghan Hill, a third grade student at Blossom Gulch Elementary School, who was given an assignment to interview the mayor. In her discussion with McKeown, Meghan asked what he found to be the most fun part of being mayor.

“I told her, ‘We have an opportunity to make this community a better place,'” he said. “If we do this, Meghan Hill can get a good education, go off to college, come back to work and perhaps to live her entire life here and not ship off to another city with a bigger economy.

“I think we have an opportunity to do this.”

Fire station update

Speaking before the Urban Renewal Agency on Tuesday, Coos Bay Fire Chief Stan Gibson reported soil samples were in the process of being collected at two potential sites for a new downtown fire station. Drilling was completed near the intersection of South Fourth Street and Curtis Avenue, he said, while additional borings would be extracted over the next few days from the area around South Fourth and Kruse Avenue. Gibson said the samples would be sent to a geologist for review. A report would likely return to the city by the middle of February.

“We are making progress,” he said. “It's just taking a long time to get here.”

In other business Tuesday, the City Council:

n authorized the audit committee to appoint a firm to complete the city's financial bookkeeping. The group, composed of McKeown and councilors Roger Gould and John Muenchrath, is scheduled to meet Friday at 4 p.m. in Gould's law office, 243 Commercial Ave. McKeown said he expects to receive at least three bids from firms with experience performing municipal audits; and

n appointed Gould, Mark Daily and Stephanie Kramer to a committee assigned the task of selecting a risk management advisor. According to staff reports, the advisor would assist in the management of claims and provision of risk management services. The impact on the city budget was estimated at between $15,000 and $25,000.