21 March 2014
- Local News
Spring Primary Gets Underway
A packed house greeted the two candidates yesterday for West Lane County Commission during the monthly Chamber of Commerce Noon Forum.
Jay Bozievich took the traditional incumbent approach and talked about his accomplishments in meeting challenges the past three years as the Commission has had to determine how best to “shrink services” in response to diminishing revenues.
Jay Bozievich – “It’s been a difficult road. We’ve had to go from a 600-million annual budget down to a 480-million annual budget. We’ve had to make a lot of tough choices. I’ve done things like protect the Florence Justice Court.”
His opponent in the May 20th Primary, Dawn Lesley, took the traditional “challenger approach” and criticized Bozievich for his shortcomings and not looking out more for rural residents.
Dawn Lesley — “I think it’s important that we look for creative solutions. That we look to the Oregon State Police and start working with them to get better attention paid to the rural areas of Lane County as part of it. And balancing the Sheriff’s budget better to prioritize that rural coverage and not just only focus on jails.”
If one candidate gets more than 50-percent of the vote in May, he or she will be alone on the November ballot. If there is no clear majority, they’ll both be there.
Dunes City Goals
Goals related to governance, water quality and emergency preparedness set in 2013 will continue to be priorities for the Dunes City Council.
That’s according to Mayor Rebecca Ruede.
She said last week the primary goals represent the core concerns of elected officials and residents. Secondary goals, however, have been updated to reflect what Ruede says is “significant progress” made by Dunes City last year.
Councilors will continue to work on updating Dunes City’s Comprehensive Plan by replacing outdated information and hold educational seminars promoting awareness of a septic tank program as well as emergency preparedness.
Spring Beach Cleanup
Already more than three-thousand people have pre-registered for tomorrow’s annual Spring Oregon Beach Cleanup.
For the third year in a row, many of those volunteers will be from a pair of Japanese-American organizations in the Portland area. They’ll be out in force to help scour the beaches for debris still coming ashore from the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
In the Florence area there is a large number of people preregistered at Carl Washburne State Park to the north. Turnout at traditional sites in and around Florence is expected to be high.
The cleanup is scheduled to run from ten AM to one PM.
Flexible Check Out
Check in to a motel and you’ll likely wonder why you have to wait until late afternoon to get into your room… and then have to be out first thing in the morning.
It’s usually because many hotels and motels have to have time to get the room cleaned and prepped for the next visitor.
Craig Sanders with Hoagland Properties in Florence says they’re going to try something just a little bit different at their two motels.
It’s called “flexible check-out” and will give guests in the “off season” a little more time to relax.
For example, he says, “a guest who books a two-night stay and checks in late on a Friday, could have the flexibility to check out late on Sunday”.
Sanders said the River House Inn and the Old Town Inn will experiment with the process between April 1st and the middle of May.
