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WEDNESDAY
APRIL
8
•
2015
1 2 5 T H A N N I V E R S A R Y F L A S H B A C K
1890 ❙
T
T HE W EST
F LORENCE T IMES
T HE S IUSLAW O AR
T HE S IUSLAW N EWS
S IUSLAW N EWS
❙ 2015
his year marks Siuslaw News’ quasquicentennial, our 125th anniversary, a remarkable achievement for any business in a small
community like Florence. To commemorate this milestone, throughout the year we’ll feature some of the town’s history as origi-
nally published in the newspaper, including historic articles and photos from more than a century ago.
Cost, size of all-events center trimmed
O RIGINALLY P UBLISHED A PRIL 5, 1995
T HE S IUSLAW N EWS , V OL . 105, N O . 13
After searching for more money to build
the Florence all-events center (AEC), plan-
ners are now looking harder at cutting down
the size and price of the proposed facility.
Joe Kerr, manager of the yet-to-built con-
vention and performing arts center, presented
a plan Monday to the Florence City Council
that could leave out some of the center’s
equipment and reduces the size of the center.
“We need to consider this slight re-design
to bring the center within the budget,” Kerr
told councilors. “Basically, we’re stepping
back a little.”
Kerr and the AEC committees are stepping
back to a design that architects originally con-
sidered when the plans were on the drawing
board the first time. Architect Richard Turi is
meeting with engineers next week to make
sure the revised design comes within the
city’s budget for the center.
“The changes we’re proposing put us in a
better position financially,” Bob Read, chair-
man of the AEC Advisory Committee, said.
“We feel very positive about this downscaling
with the possibility to expand in the future.”
Under the plan currently being considered,
a workshop, storage space, office and per-
former’s lounge area behind the stage all
would be eliminated for now.
Last year, those areas were originally
planned as future additions, but planners later
added them to the building design when it
was felt there was enough money to build the
extra rooms.
With the current financial restraints, the
rooms once again will not be built until more
money is available, Kerr said.
“Those areas can easily be added later
under this design,” he said.
Other changes include some cuts in the
mechanical and electrical systems and equip-
ment in the building. Also, many items and
optional parts for the center will be bid sepa-
rately, bringing down the projected costs of
the basic bid to construct the building.
Kerr said the changes in the base bid take
out some of the optional items for the center
that drove up the project’s cost when they
were added into the original building design.
By bidding some of the equipment separately
and directly, the city will save money.
Planners ran into price problems when con-
struction bids were opened in January and the
lowest bid came out about $800,000 over the
$2.9 million budget.
The city then looked for other funding and
applied for a state grant to avoid cuts in the
center. While word on whether the city will
recieve the state grant is not expected until
May, officials decided to go ahead and plan to
build the center without the grant money.
“We can’t delay any longer on this proj-
ect,” Kerr said, adding that if the city receives
the grant money, it will be used to add back
some of the additions and options officials
want for the center.
While not all of the features planners
desired will be bought or built into the AEC
right away, Kerr assured the council that the
cuts and changes will not result in an
unworkable convention center.
“The convention and auditorium spaces are
still the same size as before,” Kerr said. “This
will be a more basic, but still functional,
building.”
Councilors expressed support for the
revised design and urged Kerr and planners to
move ahead with the project.
As soon as changes to the center’s design
are completed, Kerr hopes to put the project
out to bid sometime next month. With luck,
he said, groundbreaking for the center will
happen in July — one year after the ceremo-
nial groundbreaking at the center’s site on
Quince Street.
NEIGHBORS
Hawaiian adventure — Conclusion
B OB J ACKSON
N EIGHBORHOOD C ORRESPONDENT
For the Siuslaw News
I
t is difficult putting a cap on the
flood of exciting memories of
our first trip to the islands of
Hawaii. A headline in a Honolulu
Star Bulletin newspaper caught our
eye one night, “Freighter Goes Down
in Heavy Seas 1,400 mi. N.E. of
Honolulu.” So it looked like the
rough seas we encountered on the
cruise ship weren’t something that
was merely exaggerated in our
minds.
I noted that Monday morning we
were up at 5 a.m. and boarded a mini-
bus in front of our hotel. Eight other
people from nearby hotels joined us
for a ride to Honolulu airport, where
we had coffee, donuts and sweet rolls
out on the concrete apron alongside
the hangars.
Then, just like the “dawn patrol,”
we
boarded
a
twin-engine
Beechcraft, and soon the almost for-
gotten sweet sound of 450 h.p. Pratt
and Whitney radials were once more
exciting my ears.
Lumbering down the runway, we
lifted off and ground our way over
Pearl Harbor, past Waikiki beach and
our hotel. Leveling off at 6,000 feet,
we skirted Molokai and flew over
Kahoolawe (the island of death),
which is now a bombing range. We
landed on the big island of Hawaii at
the beautiful new Kona airport.
Built on a lava field, it was beauti-
fully landscaped with lawns and
flowers and the highway into town
USPS# 497-660
was lined for miles with flowers of
dazzling beauty.
We were given a sight-seeing bus
trip through the Kona resort area,
which was quiet, clean and beautiful.
The Kona Hilton hotel looked like
something out of the fictional
“Shangri-La” paradise from James
Hilton’s 1933 novel, “Lost Horizon.”
Built on a cliff overlooking the sea, it
had blooming plants on all the bal-
conies (lanais). A beautiful swim-
ming pool also overhung the irides-
cent, incredibly blue ocean.
Without even a short coffee stop,
we, along with the other five planes
in our group, took off again. Barely
clearing the tree tops and dormant
lava flows, we climbed the slope of
Mauna Loa and circled the rim of the
still smoking volcanic peak. Right
down on the deck, over some of the
roughest terrain imaginable, we
began some of the hairiest flying I
have ever experienced.
Skirting the rainstorms that com-
pletely obscured Hilo, we flew along-
side perpendicular cliffs, where
dozens of waterfalls made sheer
drops of thousands of feet to the sea.
After dipping our wings over the lit-
tle church of Hana on Maui where
Charles Lindbergh was buried, we
landed at Kahului and boarded a bus
to the Iao Valley to view the Iao nee-
dle, a spectacular jungle-covered
rock spire. Then, at a big hotel, we
had a fabulous buffet luncheon.
I was permitted to occupy the co-
Our pilot came in over Pearl
Harbor much as the Japanese did on
Dec. 7, 1941, and as we were letting
down he related the story of what
happened on that Sunday morning
not so long ago.
On our final approach to Honolulu,
the world’s largest military aircraft, a
C5A Galaxy, came in just behind us.
We were barely off our runway when
it whistled past with all 36 landing
wheels smoking. It was quite a sight.
We had flown 840 miles, taken five
bus rides and one river boat trip —
what a day!
That evening, we took a city bus to
the Oceana floating oriental restau-
rant, the largest and most beautiful
floating Chinese restaurant in the
world. It had been towed over from
Hong Kong.
We had dinner for two — it could
not have been eaten by four people. It
was without a doubt the finest dinner
of its kind we had ever had anywhere
— and to top it off, we were given hot
towels to wipe our fingers and faces
afterward.
The memory of that luxurious suite
overlooking Waikiki beach, the sea
and Diamond Head will last a life-
time. The endless procession of surf-
boards, hydrofoils, ocean racing
speedboats, sailboats, warships,
canoes, catamarans and trans-pacific
airliners was so exciting we had been
reluctant to even sleep and thus miss
even a minute of it.
Perhaps in a future date more
Hawaiian stories can be covered, but
for now this is “a wrap.”
Over six days were spent coming
to this paradise on the luxurious
cruise ship Mariposa. We returned to
the mainland via a giant Boeing 747
airliner, which was carrying 343 pas-
sengers (about the same as aboard the
Mariposa). It took just over four
hours because of a tail-wind.
Until next time.
Copyright 2015 © Siuslaw News
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WHERE TO WRITE
Published every Wednesday and Saturday at 148 Maple St. in Florence, Lane County, Oregon. A member of the National
Newspaper Association and Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. Periodicals postage paid at Florence, Ore.
Postmaster, send address changes to: Siuslaw News, P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439. Phone (541) 997-3441 (See
extension numbers below). FAX (541) 997-7979.
John Bartlett
Jenna Bartlett
Ryan Cronk
Susan Gutierrez
Cathy Dietz
Ron Annis
Jeremy Gentry
pilot seat for the remainder of our
trip, which was a very big deal for
me. The cockpit on this plane was a
copy of the panel on the big jets.
“Stranger than fiction,” this bird was
used as a transition trainer for
Japanese airline pilots.
We flew low over the old leper
colony on Molakai, which was beau-
tiful from the air. At 6,500 feet, we
flew by Oahu again on our way to
Kauai (the “garden island”).
Shortly after crossing the coastline,
we flew deep into the Waimea
canyon, which had been called “the
Grand Canyon of the Pacific.” Flying
close to, and below the rims of the
jungle-covered walls, the air was
rough and I gave a sigh of relief when
we climbed out. I was especially con-
cerned that the pilot looked younger
than my teen-age grandson.
Landing at Wailua airport, we were
bused to a boat ride up the Waulua
river to the fern grotto and were
entertained by native dancers, who
also sang the hauntingly beautiful
Hawaiian wedding song for us. The
vegetation here was gigantic; a rho-
dodendron-type plant, for instance,
had long, trailing branches as thick as
a man’s arm and stretched for 100
feet in every direction. The jungle
was so dense, I doubt that a man
could even crawl through it!
Flying back to Honolulu, the big
Boeing inter-island passenger hydro-
foil was coming out of Lihue harbor
on Kauai. What a spectacular sight!
From 6,000 feet it looked like a two-
story motel, with underwater spon-
sons lifting it six feet above the
waves. It was going perhaps 52 mph
with a slick stretching for a mile
behind.
Pres. Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213
www.whitehouse.gov
Gov. Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court St.
Salem, OR 97301-4047
Governor’s Citizens’ Rep.
Message Line 503-378-4582
www.oregon.gov/gov
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
541-431-0229
www.wyden.senate.gov
FAX: 503-986-1080
Email:
Sen.ArnieRoblan@state.or.us
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753/FAX: 202-228-3997
541-465-6750
State Rep. Caddy McKeown
(Dist. 9)
900 Court St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1409
Email:
rep.caddymckeown@state.or.us
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (4th Dist.)
2134 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-6416/ 800-944-9603
541-269-2609/ 541-465-6732
www.defazio.house.gov
State Sen. Arnie Roblan (Dist. 5)
900 Court St. NE - S-417
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1705
West Lane County Commissioner
Jay Bozievich
125 E. Eighth St.
Eugene, OR 97401
541-682-4203
FAX: 541-682-4616
Email:
Jay.Bozievich@co.lane.or.us