"The Legacy of Vern Miller"

"As mayor, Dr. Vern Miller led Salem to maturity as a city. Sitting in his tiny, windowless mayor’s office in a nineteenth-century City Hall in 1965, he had visions for Salem that went beyond its just being an adjunct to the statehouse.

He had the courage and dogged determination to turn these visions into reality. He brought to his office as mayor the caring and the integrity that made him a fine and respected surgeon. And where he led, people followed.

He was drawn into public life by the problems of sanitation he saw surfacing from the septic tanks of South Salem. His successful efforts to bring sewers to that vast area led him to a city council seat. That campaign also set the stage for the annexation of the South Salem areas.

Rebuffed once in his efforts to create a new city hall, he insisted on taking his campaign back to the voters. In the fall of 1968, Salem voters overwhelmingly approved the bonds to create the quarter-mile-long Civic Center, with its city hall, public library, central fire station and parklike atmosphere.

In the process, Salem also found a civic spirit which led to approve six of the next seven financial measures placed before it by the city.

Airport improvements followed, along with spreading urban renewal to the east, which turned an old, blighted industrial area into a showplace for the city.

The momentum carried over to a Central Salem Development Program designed to save the entire downtown. We are still seeing the results of these efforts in the skybridge being constructed across Liberty Street and the move to save the riverfront.

Another legacy to Salem of which Mayor Miller was most proud is the 800-acre Minto-Brown Island Park. Even though Salem voters refused to appropriate money for its purchase, he persisted in its acquisition.

Many who treasure this unique adjunct to the city’s park system have forgotten that but for Mayor Miller’s tenacity, it would have been lost to future generations.

Disabled by a stroke in his last years, Dr. Miller looked down from his living room atop Fairmount Hill, with his gracious wife and companion, Margaret, watching the seasons change on the parkland he loved so much.

Even with half his body virtually immobilized, he continued his interest in Salem’s betterment, helping to found the Salem Public Library Foundation...and hosting the foundation’s board meetings in his home.

In his life he received many honors associated with his medical and civic careers, including that of Salem First Citizen.

Dr. Vern Miller must be marked among the first of Salem’s First Citizens as we continue to build upon the new image of Salem which his leadership helped to create."

Vern W. Miller was born in Scio, Oregon on November 7, 1905. He was a graduate of the University of Oregon Medical School, a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and a longtime Salem physician and surgeon, retiring in 1977 from the Doctor's Clinic medical group. During World War II he served with the Army Medical Corps in the South Pacific and other locations.

Dr. Miller was appointed to the Salem City Council in 1959 and served as Mayor from 1965 to 1972.

His many community activities included the Marion-Polk Medical Society, the Oregon Medical Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Oregon League of Cities. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Salem Senators baseball club and was a Senior Warden at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church. Miller was a founder of the Salem Public Library Foundation. He was the author of Reminiscences and Peregrinations and Memories of an Adventurous Boy.

Compiled by Virginia Green.

Bibliography:
Wes Sullivan. "The Legacy of Vern Miller," Statesman-Journal, November 7, 1984. A14 .

"Vern Miller Dead at 79; Doctor, Ex-Salem Mayor," Statesman-Journal, November 6, 1984. A1.