Controversy strikes the coast, as the towns of Coos Bay and North Bend consider merging. R-G story here.

Coos Bay seems to be very gung-ho about this idea - on the grounds that the border between the two cities was arbitrarily drawn up as an afterthought to the treaty of Utrecht? - but the people of North Bend stand on the “Uncle Henry” principle, explained here by activist Pat Choat Pierce.

It’s very difficult to celebrate the life of a city when there’s no city to celebrate. That would be like continuing to celebrate your uncle Henry’s birthday, long after he’s gone.

Indeed. If I were them, I’d at least hold out for a better name than “Coos Bay-North Bend”. (Would it sweeten the deal if they went with “North Bend-Coos Bay”?) My suggestion: Methapotamia.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2004 at 1:21 pm by olly and is filed under Northwest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.