Henry Holds On To Mayor’s Seat
The votes have been counted and Mayor Joe Henry will continue to serve as Florence’s mayor. Henry narrowly defeated his opponent, Florence business woman Jo Beaudreau in a very close race separated by only 125 votes. Joining Mayor Henry on the city council are port commissioner and FURA Chairperson Bill Meyer and newcomer Sally Wantz. Wantz was the top vote getter with 31.96% of the vote followed by Meyer with 30.97%. Maggie Bagon followed close with 25.6% of the vote and write in candidate Margaret Wisniewski had 11.09%. Regionally former teacher and school administrator Boomer Wright defeated his opponent Cal Mukumoto taking 55.53% of the vote for the district 9 state representative seat and Dick Anderson narrowly defeated his democratic opponent, Melissa Cribbins. Other important elections across the state include the district 4 House of Representative’s seat. Peter DeFazio defeated Alek Skarlatos garnering 61.53% of the vote and the race for Senate goes to Jeff Merkley by roughly the same percentage at 61.31.
Oregon Goes For Biden
While the national tally has not yet been completed the State of Oregon has chosen Joe Biden over President Donald Trump by a 60 to 36 % margin. In a national election that many media outlets are saying it is too close to call with several states still counting ballots. 4 of the states still counting ballots could push President Trump over the 270 mark Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan currently show Trump with very narrow leads, but Pennsylvania Trump is ahead by more than 600,000 votes.
Ballot Measures Pass
More on the election, the voters have approved 3 ballot measures that will impact revenue, limit campaign spending and assist in a new treatment for mental health. Voters approved an increase in cigarette taxes and instituted a new tax on vaping products and approved a limit on campaign spending. They also approved the use of psilocybin, a hallucinogenic chemical found in certain mushrooms that has shown to help individuals suffering from certain mental health conditions like severe depression.
New Cases of COVID-19
Lane County has reported another 36 cases of COVID-19. Yesterday’s report included a drop in infectious persons but added 3 more to the hospitalization list. There were no new cases for the 97439 zip code and the Florence number remains at 34. Dr. Willie Foster is the Head of the Emergency department at Peace Harbor Hospital and he says this second wave is disconcerting in that if it continues could heavily impact hospitals, but he says one good number is that a large portion of the new cases are in an age group that does not seem to be highly impacted by the virus.
“41% of the new cases, this is in Lane County in the last week, were in the 18-27 year old range.”
Many of whom he says are asymptomatic. Foster does say the concern comes from whom they may come in contact. State wide there were 495 new cases yesterday and 9 new deaths reported.
