This is Floyd Wynne with THE VIEW FROM HERE 6/30/05

Klamath County has lost a good friend, and so have I.
Alvin Alexander Cheyne was buried last week at Mount Laki, just a mile from the place where he was born and lived all of his
84 years.
His journey through life covered a great deal more than just that mile. He was among the most knowledgeable people in the county on the subject of the water situation as well as ranching.
I first met him when we both were campaigning for a spot on the County Commissioner slate. Both of us were elected, and joined Nell Kuonen on the Board.
It was quite a combination.....with my being pretty much the city slicker...having moved to the Commission from the Klamath Falls City Council. Alvin brought a great deal of information about the rural area of the county....and Nell was a thoughtful, graceful third.
Some even called us the Three Musketeers....although there were probably others who had different names for us, but that’s politics.
We worked extremely well together...and faced a number of big problems. The Klamath County Nursing home that Bryant Williams and Lloyd Gift worked so hard to build....was dedicated, but became a financial problem despite its location adjacent to Merle West Medical Center. A serial levy eased the finances for a time.
Then along came the mental health situation and that, too, had to be resolved...and was.
The land use issue was perhaps the most troubling of the problems the three of us faced because we all strongly believed in private property, and while feeling that zoning was proper inside the urban growth boundary.....we did not feel the state should be in a position to dictate to every property owner outside those areas what they could or could not do with their property.
The state rejected our land use plan for Klamath County...and really substituted state mandates. As it has turned out Measure 37 bids fair to return some of those rights.
These were just a few of the problems that we faced and resolved.
Certainly we had differences on some issues, but we always could debate them and move forward.
As I said, when it came to water issues....or ranching issues, we always turned to Alvin who had the knowledge and the experience to give us the right direction.
He was active in many, many other ways during his time, before and after his service on the Commission.
He will be sorely missed, not just by me, but by all of his many, many friends in Klamath County.

This is Floyd Wynne and that’s THE VIEW FROM HERE.