9 June 2014
Oregon Wildfire Season Begins in a Big Way
Oregon firefighters are battling a pair of fast-moving blazes northwest of Bend and have built preliminary containment lines on two sides of the fires.
Crews hoped the lines would hold through hot and windy weather yesterday.
The two fires, spotted Saturday afternoon, quickly grew to more than six-thousand acres. About 250 homes were placed under evacuation orders yesterday… and another two-thousand in the area are considered threatened.
Residents of 200 of those homes were allowed to return late last night, but 50 were still considered to be in danger. The Two Bulls Fire has not damaged any structures and no injuries have been reported. Fire Information Officer Lisa Clark with the Oregon Department of Forestry says there is no estimate as to when the fires will be contained.
Crews are focusing on preventing the fire from spreading east and south toward homes… as well as protecting the City of Bend’s water supply to the west.
Tax Deferral Program Changes Implemented
Qualifying property owners who choose to defer their property taxes under a state program will begin seeing lower interest charges.
Changes to the Senior and Disabled Property Tax Deferral Program, approved by this year’s legislature, took effect Friday.
Deferred taxes have been accruing compound interest over the past several years in order to keep the program solvent.
With the improved economy, lawmakers accepted recommendations to revert to simple interest, reducing the financial burden on seniors.
Under the program, qualifying property owners can borrow money from the state to make their property tax payments. The money is then repaid to the program when the property is sold.
Sharrows Highlight Road Sharing
New symbols have been showing up on Florence streets in the past week or so.
It’s an outline of a bicycle with an arrow above it. It’s called a “sharrow”… short-hand for “shared-lane markings”.
Public Works spokesman Shawn Penrod says the symbol is used to indicate that motor vehicles and bicycles are supposed to share the travel lane. It’s also used to remind vehicle drivers that bicycles may be present.
The sharrows direct bicyclists to the proper travel lane and away from sidewalks or the parking strip; at the same time discouraging them from riding against the flow of traffic.
The marks have been painted on Spruce Street initially and will begin showing up shortly on Quince Street between Highway 126 and the Old Town area.
