albany police department

RASPBERRY (raz’ber’e) n. A sharp, scornful comment, criticism or rebuke; a derisive, splatting noise, often called the Bronx cheer.

•ROSES to a new disc golf course that will be installed in April at Deerfield Park, southeast of South Albany High School.

The 9-basket course is intended for beginners, and you’ll likely see parents teaching children the sport.

Deerfield Park has been an underutilized bit of green space for years, so it’s nice to see the city of Albany making the most of the wide-open site.

The Disc Golf Club of Albany also is paying for the course, so that saves the city a small expense.

And speaking of money, disc golf is a great activity in part because it doesn’t cost very much to have a nice walk in the park. You only need a disc or two – though some players carry a full arsenal with them, of course.

The mid-Willamette Valley is something of a hotbed for disc golf with quality courses at Waterloo County Park outside Lebanon, Bryant Park in Albany, Adair County Park in Adair Village and Willamette Park in Corvallis. This adds another option.

•ROSES to the Albany Police Department and its efforts to connect with residents via the social media platform TikTok, where the agency has roughly 700,000 followers.

For the most part, APD does fun videos for the sake of community building. That’s important in a day and age when many people don’t trust law enforcement.

“(We’re) showing we’re just regular people who like to have fun and are not scary like the uniform can come across,” said Laura Hawkins, APD community engagement officer, who started the organization’s TikTok account.

The short videos don’t take much staff time and are often shot in one take. The comic relief also is important for officers whose jobs can get a bit tough and dark. Trust us on this one. We’ve sat through trials where the testimony was harrowing.

The agency users additional social media sites to get its message out, such as Facebook, and that’s been critical to help find missing children and with other cases.

While there are public safety announcements and tips through TikTok, that isn’t the main point of the app for the agency.

Still, thanks to APD’s huge following, we’d love for it to do a few more helpful reminders on the platform to focus on its core mission – and to silence critics who say the outreach is a waste of taxpayer money.

•ROSES to a $24 million construction project on the Oregon State University campus that will make conditions safer for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers along Southwest Washington Way.

Unfortunately, the project includes the elimination of more than two dozen maple trees and 123 parking spots. That seems like a small price to pay for increased safety for students, workers and Corvallis residents.

Thankfully, parking isn’t a major issue at OSU, and that likely won’t be the case moving forward. You can almost always find a parking spot at OSU, though you also should be prepared for a healthy walk to the heart of the campus.

The project includes dividing the roadway from a wider pedestrian walkway and a two-lane separated bicycle track – the first of its kind in Corvallis. Crosswalk accessibility also will be improved, fencing installed and lighting will alert passersby of oncoming trains.

Work is scheduled to be completed in multiple phases during the next two years.

•ROSES to local efforts to help Ukraine and deliver medical supplies, protective gear and other resources to the war-torn country, whose residents are fighting a Russian invasion.

Those efforts are too numerous to mention in this limited space, but we’d like to highlight one in particular.

Hannah and Misha are a Corvallis couple, but they met in Ukraine, where he’s from.

With the war, they’ve returned to his homeland with nearly a ton of supplies, some of which was supplied by the Corvallis Sister Cities Association.

Additional donations can be directed to @steviethevagabond on Venmo or you can find “Help Us Help Ukraine!” on Go FundMe.

You can also go to the “Ukraine: How to help” article on our websites.