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WEDNESDAY
SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF FLORENCE • DUNES CITY • WESTLAKE • MAPLETON • SWISSHOME • DEADWOOD • YACHATS AND ALL POINTS BETWEEN
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14
FEBRUARY
18
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2015
$1.00
Dunes City
Council
nears septic
tank solution
Fire board
approves
strategic
plan
Chief Langborg’s plan
pinpoints department
success, weakness
CROW’ S S HARE Y OUR H EART
FUNDRAISER EARNS RECORD AMOUNT
B Y J ACK D AVIS
Siuslaw News
B Y C HANTELLE M EYER
Siuslaw News
On Feb. 5, the Siuslaw Valley Fire
and Rescue (SVFR) board met to
approve moving forward with Chief
Jim Langborg’s proposal to initiate a
strategic plan.
A strategic plan is developed when
an outside consultant, in this case,
Emergency Services Consulting
International (ESCI), evaluates a
department for strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and challenges.
“We are going to proceed with the
strategic plan with ESCI that we have
previously approved,” said board
member Rob Ward.
Board president John Scott said,“We
had the consulting group ESCI, spe-
cializing in fire departments, sched-
uled to start earlier ... Chief Langborg
got ahold of them last week to tell them
to proceed.”
According to Scott, the department
was overdue for a strategic plan.
“We’ve never been through one,”
said Langborg. “They’re going to
come in and talk to internal and exter-
nal stakeholders. They’ve already been
talking. The intent is to get an organi-
zational overview. Where are we now,
where should we be going and what do
people, particularly the community,
think we should be doing.”
Stakeholders include volunteer and
staff members of the department and
the commu-
nity.
“The intent is
He said,
to get an
“With that
organizational information,
overview.
they help us
Where are we d e v e l o p
now, where
objectives
and goals.
should we be
Broad-based
going and
goals first,
what do peo-
then
you
ple ... think
develop sub-
we should be
goals, which
doing.”
are all the lit-
F IRE C HIEF
tle
things
J IM L ANGBORG
that have to
take place to
accomplish the big goals. The nice
thing about a strategic plan is that all of
these objectives and sub-goals are
measurable.”
A key feature of a strategic plan is
that it covers three to four years. Many
of the goals and sub-goals will have
time or budget factors included.
“It’s good for the chief, because this
is a plan that’s signed off by the board
of directors,” he said. “They say, ‘As
the governing body, this is what we
want to do.’ It’s not just me as the chief
doing what I want to do. It’s what the
organization needs to do and we’re
doing this together. And what’s nice for
the board is that they have something
to measure my progress.”
When Langborg joined the SVFR in
2013, he noticed that changes would
have to be made.
See
PLAN 11A
Classifieds
B6
Library Tidings A7
Opinion
A4
Police
A2
Scoreboard
Sports
Tides
Weather
PHOTOS BY CHANTELLE MEYER/SIUSLAW NEWS
CROW students at the Kissing Booth (above) handed out chocolate Hershey’s Kisses and raffle
tickets. Below, Erin Reinke (left) belted “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” and 10-year-old Nyah
(right) sang Disney’s “Almost There.”
B Y C HANTELLE M EYER
Siuslaw News
C
hildren’s Repertory of Oregon Workshops
(CROW) raised more than $46,000 in its
Share Your Heart fundraising show and
auction on Feb. 13 at the
Florence Events Center. Raise
Your Paddle, announced by
Coast Radio’s Wayne Sharpe,
garnered $26,000 in only 15
minutes.
“We are so excited, delight-
ed and overwhelmed with joy
and gratitude for all those who
have supported this important
project,” said CROW director
Melanie Heard. “It’s obvious
that Florence not only has a
huge heart, but that they are
willing and able to share it with our wonderful, artistic
kids.”
Share Your Heart featured more than 20 performanc-
es, with 10 songs by current and former CROW stu-
dents. Other performers included Marty Adams, who
sang and played an original composition, Mary Beers,
Jacob Steinberger, Jason Wood, Sheena Moore, Mike
Jacobson, Erin Reinke and Heard, who sang a song she
dedicated to her husband.
B4
B
B1
A2
The amount CROW raised included ticket and auction
sales, donations and pledges from those who attended
the event and from those who gave without attending.
Many local businesses and individuals donated time
and resources to the event and its silent auction. Grocery
Outlet and the International C-Food Market provided
wine. Harvest Bakery and
local bakers offered desserts
for the auction. Volunteers
included community members
and CROW staff, students and
their families.
“Their generosity is so
deeply appreciated by every-
one at CROW,” Heard said. “I
know I speak for all of us at
CROW when I say thank you,
from the bottom of our
hearts.”
CROW still needs to raise
$29,000 in the first phase of their plan to purchase and
renovate a permanent facility.
“We are now so close to our goal of $75,000 in direct
donations from the community,” she said.
Heard has scheduled a meeting to evaluate the suc-
cessfulness of this season of fundraising, to discuss and
plan next year’s Share Your Heart and plan the next
steps in raising $280,000, the total amount required for
their future facility.
Dunes City is one step closer to
adopting a septic ordinance revision.
During Thursday’s council meeting,
councilors showed solidarity of agree-
ment heretofore unseen in the seven-
year history of the ordinance revision
process.
The major sticking points of the
past appear to have been resolved
through compromise and the insertion
of a chart that outlines a logic-based
approach to an inspection timeline.
Dunes City Planning Commission
Chairman George Burke presented a
modified version of ordinance 210-A
to the board and explained how the
planning commission reached its con-
clusions. He said the Citizen Advisory
Committee (CAC) revised the exist-
ing ordinance and sent out requests
for input to all Dunes City residents.
“We received 17 written inputs
from the community and many com-
ments at meetings,” Burke said.
The primary difference between
proposed ordinance 211-A and previ-
ously proposed ordinance 203 is that
instead of requiring a mandatory sep-
tic tank pump-out every five years,
the new ordinance uses a table based
on the size of the septic tank and the
number of fulltime household resi-
dents to determine the frequency of
pump-outs.
The Oregon State University exten-
sion service septic maintenance table,
created in 2000, and consistent with
older similar tables, gives recom-
mended lengths of time for the pump-
ing of septic tanks.
Burke explained, “If there are two
people living in the house and they
are only there three months out of the
year, it will be a totally different situ-
ation than if there are four people liv-
ing in the house year round.
“The table is the guideline for the
city. We will still have inspections and
the inspector will determine when the
tank needs to be pumped. The dura-
tion of pumping is not based on this
chart. Pumping will still be done at
the inspector’s recommendation. The
new document leaves it to the profes-
sional to decide when pumping needs
to occur.”
If a Dunes City resident refuses to
have the septic tank pumped after the
inspector recommends doing so, it
becomes a violation of city code.
See
COUNCIL 6A
Siuslaw school board receives superintendent’s mid-year report
New full-day kindergarten, self-operation food service among update items
B Y J ACK D AVIS
Siuslaw News
Siuslaw School District Superinten-
dent Ethel Angal shared her mid-year
report with board members during the
Feb. 11 meeting.
The report goals and action items
were finalized during the Sept. 10
school board meeting.
Your
INSIDE
W E D N E S D AY
Councilors also
seek grant funds for
emergency generator
Among the all-encompassing dis-
trict-related topics were updates on
the plans for the all-day kindergarten
facility and curriculum, an update on
the in-house food service program,
projected budget status report and
efforts to maintain improved commu-
nity communication.
The district’s new all-day kinder-
garten program is moving forward
and on schedule, according to Angal.
The first official kindergarten plan-
ning meeting for curriculum design
took place Feb. 9.
A team from the elementary school,
including the counselor, principal,
superintendent and at least one board
member, plan to attend the statewide
conference on full-day kindergarten,
Feb. 26 and 27, to learn effective plan-
Weather
T ODAY
T HURSDAY
F RIDAY
S ATURDAY
Partly
sunny
55
44
Clouds
& sun
55
43
Partly
cloudy
54
41
Clouds
& sun
55
48
Sports—B
ning and implementation techniques.
The board has approved the facility
plan for the new five-classroom mod-
ular kindergarten building. The build-
ing has been ordered and city permits
are in process.
“The permitting has been going
really well,” Angal said.
See
SCHOOL 6A
CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK
125