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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 2016)
4 A ❘ SATURDAY EDITION ❘ JANUARY 16, 2016 Siuslaw News P.O. Box 10 Florence, OR 97439 RYAN CRONK , EDITOR ❘ 541-902-3520 ❘ EDITOR @ THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM Opinion YESTERDAY’S NEWS MOMENTS IN TIME The History Channel On Jan. 19, 1809, author Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston. By the time he was 3 years old, Poe’s parents had died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan. Allan eventu- ally disowned Poe for gambling debts. On Jan. 22, 1879, U.S soldiers badly bloody Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife and his peo- ple as they make a desperate march to flee the Indian Territory where they had been relocated and return to their Wyoming homeland. On Jan. 18, 1912, after a two-month ordeal, the expedition of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott arrives at the South Pole only to find that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had preceded them by just over a month. On Jan. 21, 1959, Carl Dean Switzer, the actor who as a child played “Alfalfa,” the freck- le-faced boy with a cowlick, in the “Our Gang” comedy film series, dies at age 31 in a fight in California. LETTERS Indian Creek land scoping The U.S. Forest Service is about to land- scape Indian Creek drainage again. The aquat- ic and terrestrial ecosystem proposal is to enhance the area. The group has been chang- ing the area for the past 20 years, wasting lots of dollars. Project spending has been ongoing. Why? Readers, your help is needed to insure that another government waste does not occur. As an educated reader, how do you feel about your public lands? Jobs have gone away. Rural communities are starving. Schools are lacking appropriate funding. Mapleton swim- ming pool closed. Trees that could provide liv- ing wage jobs die of diseases, insects and mis- management. With proper government timber manage- ment, rural communities could become eco- nomically sound again. Timber is a great investment, which can be recycled over and over again. Do you like investing money with no return? The Forest Service is planning to close many of the remaining roads. Fire protection will be reduced and hunting access limited. Mushroom picking and auto sightseeing pleasures will be highly restricted. This repeat performance is a poor use of public dollars. You can help by going to the hearing on Thursday, Jan. 21, at 6 p.m., at the Mapleton Grange. Come, express displeasure of the poor use of your tax dollars. Shouldn’t education, roads, police and fire protection come first? Richard Beers Oregon Homestead Family Pioneer, Indian Creek Watershed, Eugene How the walk-in clinic works We had a couple Letters to the Editor in 2015 complaining about the hours it can take to be seen by a doctor at our PeaceHealth Walk-In Clinic and, even more frustrating, to not even be seen. I know that can happen, but there are several legitimate reasons for it. First, we have several thousand residents in Florence and nearby communities who do not have an assigned primary care physician (PCP). For those unassigned residents, the Walk-In Clinic is their only PeaceHealth med- ical resource for non-emergency care. PeaceHealth is constantly recruiting and searching for more physicians to serve our unassigned residents, but the current nation- wide shortage of physicians hinders recruit- ment in smaller communities. Second, the Walk-In Clinic is also available for same-day care for patients who have an assigned PCP. Having the Walk-In Clinic available for these patients hopefully keeps small, treatable conditions from progressing to hard-to-treat or emergency conditions when no timely appointment is available. Third, remember this is a first-come, first- served Walk-In Clinic. The doors open at 6:45 a.m., Monday through Friday, and at 7:45 a.m. on Saturday. I have used the walk-in clinic a number of times while my PCP was on medical leave, and usually got up early so I could be one of the first ones in when the doors opened. Not everyone can do that, but it is the surest way of being seen without a long wait. It all depends on the number of patients seeking care. Even though the clinic is open until 5:30 p.m., the number of providers seeing patients can easily be overwhelmed. Fourth, when you do see a provider, he/she will give you all the time needed to resolve your issue. That is different than when a patient sees his/her assigned PCP with an appointment of about 20 minutes. It also explains why the Walk-In Flow Specialist can- not tell us how long our wait will be. It all depends on the issues (known and unknown) walking in. Finally, remember this is a “Primary Care” Walk-In Clinic as opposed to an Urgent Care facility. That has benefits to us as patients, allowing us to see doctors for primary care issues and keeping our charges at that level. Here’s how I try to make the Walk-In Clinic work for me: I arrive as early as possible. If I arrive midday or early afternoon, I will proba- bly have a couple hours of waiting ahead of me. If that is the case, I ask the Flow Specialist to call me when my number comes up and return home (or go run other errands). If time runs out and I don’t get called, my option is to try again the next day, but at least I haven’t spent hours sitting in the waiting room. If I didn’t have my own vehicle, I would seek out a family member, friend or neighbor who could drop me off and come back for me if the wait didn’t look too long or take me home and return me to the clinic later. Nena Harvey, director of PeaceHealth Siuslaw Region Medical Group operations and the driving force behind the Walk-In Clinic, has worked hard with staff to provide same-day medical care that is truly designed to meet the patients’ needs. Having had its beginning in early 2010, it has been tweaked time after time to make it more patient friendly and efficient. Nena and her staff are to be congratulated on providing first-class, same-day medical care that certain- ly meets the needs of many Florence residents, our visitors and those living in our nearby communities. Bob Horney Florence Terrorist-free nation My mail forwarded the Dec. 19, 2015, edi- tion of the Siuslaw News that just recently caught up with me as I travel in my RV. In the Letter to the Editor section of that edition, a person took exception to my Dec. 9 letter regarding Syrian refugees. When I said we had to face facts regarding possible infiltration of radical Muslims within the refugee program, being pushed on us by the Obama regime, he said, “This is a fact that is not a fact.” It is a fact that the Greek gov- ernment just confiscated a shipping container full of automatic weapons, munitions and bomb vests labeled as “furniture” for further shipment into Europe to Muslim refugees. Does this gentleman not consider that weapons, munitions, bomb vests, etc., could be shipped here, if not already here, for radical Muslims entering our country in the refugee program? He calls my analogy of the M&M candies (where I suggested there could possibly be 10 poisoned ones in a jar of thousands) cute, trite, naive and simplistic. He did not, however, offer to take that jar of M&Ms into his home, I note. I would also call his attention to the fact, and it too is a fact, more than one President of the United States has halted immigration into our country temporarily when it was warrant- ed as many of us suggest it is now. It is not bigotry, racism or scapegoating as he suggests of those of us that want to keep our nation as free as possible from terrorists, either foreign or domestic. Tony Cavarno Florence On Jan. 23, 1968, the U.S. intelligence- gathering ship Pueblo is seized by the North Korean navy and its crew charged with spying. Negotiations to free the 83-man crew dragged on for nearly a year, and required a signed con- fession by the ship’s captain admitting to spy- ing. On Jan. 24, 1972, after 28 years of hiding in the jungles of Guam, farmers discover Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese sergeant who was unaware that World War II had ended. Yokoi had gone into hiding rather than surrender to the Americans. On Jan. 20, 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as the 40th president of the United States, the 52 U.S. captives held at the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran, are released, ending the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis. President Jimmy Carter had been unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis. (c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc. L ETTERS TO THE E DITOR P OLICY The Siuslaw News welcomes letters to the editor concerning issues affecting the Florence area and Lane County. Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters must be signed. All letters should be limited to about 300 words and must include the writer’s full name, address and phone number for verification. Letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. Publication of any letter is not guaranteed and depends on space available and the volume of letters received. Libelous and anonymous letters as well as poetry will not be published. All submissions become the property of Siuslaw News and will not be returned. Write to: Editor@TheSiuslawNews.com USPS# 497-660 Copyright 2016 © Siuslaw News John Bartlett Jenna Bartlett Ryan Cronk Susan Gutierrez Cathy Dietz Ron Annis Jeremy Gentry Publisher, ext. 327 General Manager, ext. 318 Editor, ext. 313 Advertising Director, ext. 326 Office Supervisor, ext. 312 Production Supervisor Press Manager DEADLINES: Wednesday Issue—General news, Monday noon; Budgets, four days prior to publication; Regular classified ads, Monday 1 p.m.; Display ads, Monday noon; Boxed and display classified ads, Friday 5 p.m. Saturday Issue—General news, Thursday noon; Budgets, two days prior to publication; Regular classified ads, Thursday 1 p.m.; Display ads, Thursday noon; Boxed and display classified ads, Wednesday 5 p.m. Soundings, Tuesday 5 p.m. NEWSPAPER SUBSCRIPTION RATES: In Lane County — 1-year subscription, $71; 10-weeks subscription, $18; Out of Lane County — 1-year subscription, $94; 10-weeks subscription, $24; Out of State — 1-year subscription, $120; Out of United States — 1-year subscription, $200; E-Edition Online Only (Anywhere) — 1-year subscription, $65. Mail subscription includes E-Edition. Website and E-Edition: www.TheSiuslawNews.com 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; fax 541-997-7979. All press releases may be sent to PressReleases@TheSiuslawNews.com. 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