Four organizations to recieve $1,000 each
The Florence City Council will consider grant awards this evening totaling $4-thousand for four different non-profit groups in the area.
Each of the four groups would receive one-thousand-dollars if approved by the Council.
The Children’s Repertory of Oregon Workshop… or CROW… would use their money to help pay for renovation of their building. The Florence Cold Weather Shelter would purchase cots. Florence Food Share would use the money to help pay for fencing around their garden and pay for roof replacement. Project Graduation would use their grant funding to help pay for facility rental for the drug and alcohol free party for graduating seniors at Siuslaw High School.
The Council meets this evening, six pm at City Hall. In other business this evening, they will hear a special presentation from Siuslaw School superintendent Ethel Angal; and another from Police Chief Tom Turner on the city’s public safety program.
Lawsuit filed in death of Florence man
A Florence woman has filed a nearly $1-million lawsuit against a care facility, claiming that it didn’t do enough to address health symptoms that led to the death of her father.
83-year old Reuben Fast moved into Regency Florence in October 2014 and stayed there until nine days before his death in March 2015.
Diane Richter’s lawsuit claims nursing home employees failed to properly care for her father’s nutrition and hydration needs, leading him to suffer severe dehydration and kidney failure before his death.
Regency Florence and its corporate parent, Regency Pacific, which operates 40 care facilities in four Western states, declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Highway 36 reopened
Oregon Department of Transportation crews continued to work 12-hour shifts through the weekend and were able to re-open Highway 36, two miles east of Triangle Lake.
ODOT spokesperson Angela Beers-Seydel said the final task was to install new guard rails along the roadway before traffic could begin flowing. That was completed shortly after four pm yesterday.
The roadway had been closed since last Sunday after a large slide, accompanied by dozens of large trees, came down on the roadway.
Watching for whales on spring break
Spring break visitors along the Oregon Coast and at the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center can have a “whale” of a good time in coming days.
Through Saturday, volunteers will be on hand to help visitors spot migrating gray whales.
The giant mammals are headed back north to summer feeding grounds near Alaska after spending the winter in warmer waters.
Retired park ranger Michael Noack will present a talk on “experiencing gray whales” two times today at Cape Perpetua. He has studied the creatures for many years and has assisted whale research missions and trained whale watch volunteers.
Noack’s talks will be at 11:30, then again at 1:30 at the center. There’s no cost for the presentations, but there is a day use fee charged for parking.
Oregon Beach Cleanup this weekend
The call is going out for volunteers to pick up debris from Oregon beaches after a stormy winter season. The semi-annual SOLVE Oregon Beach Cleanup is set for Saturday between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. One particular area of concern, according to SOLVE’s Kayleen Boyle, is plastic… some large, some small.
Kayleen Boyle – “But those little pieces of plastic, they’re called microplastics, a lot of time they can do a lot more damage than the bigger pieces because a lot of wildlife mistake them for food. They really have a bigger impact and so they’re just really detrimental all around.”
Boyle said in our area there are four areas of specific concern: Alsea Bay Bridge in Waldport; Yachats Beach; Siltcoos Outlet, just south of Florence; and Umpqua Dunes at Winchester Bay.
Kayleen Boyle – “The entire coast is in need of a lot care and volunteers, but these sites are sites where we have that same need but we don’t usually have a lot of people coming out to them for one reason or another, so we’re trying to highlight these sites to folks as opportunities to get out there and make a real difference with their time.”
For more information on the beach cleanup and how to register, Boyle said you can go to their website… www-dot-SolveOregon-dot-org.
Life in real timber country
Author and essayist Robert Leo Heilman will read from his acclaimed 1995 work “Overstory: Zero: Real Life in Timber Country” this week at the Mapleton Branch of Siuslaw Public Library.
Heilman, from Myrtle Creek, has updated “Overstory” for the 20th anniversary edition. The author dstribes his writing as trying to “look at connections between my life and the lives of my neighbors.” Library spokesperson Kevin Mitge says the “intimate interior” of the Mapleton library is the “perfect place” to enjoy Heilman’s “delightful and introspective writings of small town Oregon.”
Heilman will read from “Overstory” beginning at 5:15 Thursday evening.
