Changing of the Guard
It was the changing of the guard at the City Hall last night as the outgoing council held their final meeting as a group. After passing an ordinance that adopts rule changes in the building codes to coincide with Oregon rules, Councilor Woodbury and Mayor Henry gave their final remarks. Councilor Woodbury hailed praise on the council but particularly the City Manager Erin Reynolds.
“You made sure we got through everything the way it should be done properly. You kept us informed when anything was going on that we needed to know about ahead of time. It’s been an absolute pleasure working with you. You’re an asset to the city.”
Mayor Henry spoke last wrapping up his 10 years of volunteer service as both a mayor and councilor.
“I think we’ve accomplished a lot. I want to again say thank you to the staff, thank you to our community for your support. Florence is a volunteer community and we wouldn’t survive without our volunteers so I want to thank everybody out there that does work to make Florence a better place to live.”
The meeting adjourned and after a short pause and a reception the new council and mayor were sworn in.
“I Robert B. Ward Jr. -do solemnly swear that I will uphold and defend- do solemnly swear to uphold and defend – the constitution of the united states of America…”
New Commissioners to Post
The seat of government in Eugene for Lane County, Harris Hall, will be the location for the annual “State of the County Address” given by the chair of the Lane County Commission, Pat Farr. The ceremony begins at ten AM Monday and will include the swearing in of two new commissioners, plus one who was reelected in the fall. Heather Buch (buck) won reelection to the east-lane seat. David Loveall will represent Springfield and Ryan Ceniga will represent West Lane. Ceniga knows he has a lot of work ahead of him.
“It’s just the learning curve. Getting to know the different departments and what is what.”
He says the board of commissioners has some work to do.
“We’re looking at not having a balanced budget in the near future. That’s when tough decisions have to be made. Do we cut costs? Or how can we gain revenue?”
Those are decisions, he says, that previous commissions haven’t had to deal with for at least the last ten years. The State of the County and swearing in will be livestreamed on the county’s website, lanecountyor.gov/webcasts.
Gas Prices
After weeks of downward pressure at the pumps the latest storm to run through the country caused a spike in prices with a 12 cent jump nationwide. However, Oregon prices were more stable with the state of Oregon seeing a 3 cent drop in the price of fuel. Locally Florence saw a slight increase with prices averaging $3.52 a gallon for regular. Marie Dodds with AAA Oregon says 2022 will go down as a record year for the highest average price for gasoline in history. She says you can expect to see more increases in the short term and a lot will depend on weather conditions across the US.