Rhody Drive Construction
The city of Florence is continuing the construction on Rhododendron Drive this week and city manager Erin Reynolds says the realignment is in full progress. With Rhododendron Weekend upcoming she says it is important to share the information with others that may be visiting.
“Areas where it is closed both on the north and the sough end do have barricades and it is pretty obvious that it is a severe construction zone.”
Even with the construction, Reynolds says it will not be a total mess.
“They will try and get it as cleaned up as possible for the weekend and we’ll have more messaging about that as the week entering rhododendron festival itself.”
The transfer station is still accessible as is the Oregon Coast Humane society.
Future First Citizen
The Future First citizen has been revealed. This year the winner of the esteemed Marteen Wick Future First Citizen scholarship is senior Cate Waggoner. Cate is one of two Salutatorians in her class with a 4.0 GPS and an honors diploma. She currently serves as the Siuslaw senior class president and an active member of the interact club and is a multi-sport athlete and is the current queen Rhododendra
Memorial Weekend Travel
Gas prices are still dipping as we move closer to the Memorial Day weekend. AAA Oregon is reporting a decrease of about 6 cents a gallon for Oregon. Along with the decreases Marie Dodds with AAA Oregon says about 43.8 million people will be on the roadways for the holiday with over 38 million traveling by car. This could push the price of gasoline up for the weekend and AAA anticipates that this will be the heaviest Memorial Day travel weekend since 2000. Air travelers will make up about 3.51 million travelers. About 600,000 Oregonians are expected to be part of the travel traffic.
PeaceHealth and ONA Agree
PeaceHealth has announced that the negotiations with the Oregon Nurses Association home health and hospice nurses have come to a conclusion with the ONA agreeing to a 4 year contract. This agreement firms up care for the patients in home health and hospice and provides stability for care offered in Lane County.
Seatbelt Education
The city of Florence police department will be participating in the Click it or ticket campaign from May 20th through June 2nd. The program is funded by federal money for overtime hours. The program is intended to educate the public on the importance of safety belt usage and proper restraints for infants. ODOT crash data for 2021 shows lack of safety belt or child restraint use was a factor in 32% or 119 of a total 377 motor vehicle occupant fatalities. Of the 26,325 passenger vehicle occupants killed in the United States in 2021, 50% were not wearing seat belts.