New Urgent Care Planned; Reedsport Click It Or Ticket; Rain Likely; New Park Dedicated

New Urgent Care Planned

McKenzie Primary Care Associates has been acquired by Nova Health.  Nova health has been operating in Lane County and Roseburg over the past decade with several facilities under the names of Eugene Urgent Care, Roseburg Urgent Care, Prime Care Partners and Atlas Physical Therapy.  The addition of MPCA in Florence is a continuation of growth for the company.  Nova plans, in late summer, to offer urgent care to the list of services provided.  Clinic Manager Brittany Elliot says that current MPCA providers will continue to offer their services under the Nova name.  CEO Bill Clendenen says the consistency of maintaining the providers and adding urgent care will add great value to the patient experience.  Nova offices are located on Highway 101 across from Shervins tire and automotive.

Reedsport Click It Or Ticket

The City or Reedsport has announced that their police department will also be participating in the Click it or Ticket campaign beginning May 20th through June 2nd.  There will be a one day coordinated seat belt awareness event on Monday, May 20th as part of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “Border to Border” kickoff campaign.  The B2B campaign aims to increase law enforcement participation by coordinating highly visible seat belt enforcement and providing seat belt fact sheets for drivers at heavily traveled, highly visible state border checkpoints.  2017 statistics show that 10,076 unbuckled passengers were killed in crashes in the United states.  That same year 55% of passenger vehicle occupants were killed at night.  A large focus of the click it or ticket and B2B campaign will be focused at night.

Rain Likely

Rain is likely to impact the weeks festivities as Florence begins the 112th Rhododendron Festival.  Showers are likely each day but predictions are for the rain to fall in the morning hours from Thursday through Sunday.  For today rain is expected throughout the day.  The festival kicks off today with the Davis Shows Northwest carnival in the Port Parking lot.  Rides will begin at 4 pm this afternoon until 11pm.  This weekend stay tuned to Coast Radio 106.9 FM for all the Rhody Festival coverage.  Live coverage will begin Friday afternoon and will conclude with the 112th Rhododendron Festival Parade on Sunday at 12 noon.

New Park Dedicated

Florence opened its newest park last night with a ribbon cutting.  The Siuslaw River Beach access park is the latest accomplishment from the city of Florence.  Public Works Director Mike Miller says the park was a labor of love and came at a very low cost to the city.

“It’s the result of 2 grants so a state parks local government grant and also a local land water conversation fund grant through the u.s. forest service.”

Miller says the park only cost the city about $2000. Out of pocket.  The park includes some bridge railing from the remodeled Siuslaw River Bridge, a picnic shelter and picnic tables.  There is also river access for kayaks and boats, but there is no plan for placing a dock at the park.