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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (March 26, 2016)
❘ / SIUSLAWNEWS ❘ @ SIUSLAWNEWS SATURDAY EDITION St. Paddy’s Pet Parade SPRING AIR INSIDE — A12 SPORTS — B 126TH YEAR ❘ ISSUE NO. 25 Rotary Auction soars over $100K SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890 FLORENCE, OREGON LANE COUNTY COMMUNITY JOB FAIR Workforce welcome T Job seekers attend inaugural event to check out local employers Last-minute donations bring “Sky’s the Limit!” fundraiser past goal B Y C HANTELLE M EYER Siuslaw News Rotary Club of Florence announced the grand total of this year’s Rotary Auction at its lunch meeting on March 24, and the sky really was the limit as community members raised $101,390. Last year’s “Roaring Good Night for Giving,” a 1920s-inspired event, raised just over $100,000, setting the previous record for most money raised. Rotary held the auction at the Florence Events Center on March 12. By the end of the night, cashiers counted $98,240 raised for student scholarships and area programs. The final tally, how- ever, took a little bit longer. Auction Committee co-chair Kevin McMullen said, “We had a goal this year of $100,000. Whether we make the goal or not, I will say that we are very, very proud of our club and what they did. It’s a heck of a goal to get up to where we are.” During the Rotary lunch, McMullen and co-chair Kim Erickson revealed that they had one more item to auction off. Erickson also said that McMullen would shave his impressive beard if Rotarians could reach $100,000. Adding those funds to the total, as well as including money from coin jars and a Rotarian fundraiser contest, pushed the auction’s limit to its final amount. “We want to thank everyone we can,” McMullen said. More than 300 people attended the Rotary Auction, filling 38 tables with costumes that fit the “Sky’s the Limit!” theme. “One of the things that makes this event possible for us is all the sponsors that we get before the auction even starts,” Erickson said. “Everything raised that night is money in our pocket for scholarships.” See ❘ MARCH 26, 2016 ❘ $1.00 B Y C HANTELLE M EYER Siuslaw News he Florence Community Job Fair demonstrated success for the 28 employer and community vendors as well as the nearly 200 people who attended the March 24 event hosted by Three Rivers Casino Resort in its Event Center. “All 28 people with tables showed up and made the event so successful. They were able to make offers, hire people and accept applications throughout the day,” said job fair coordinator Pam Hickson, recruitment specialist for the casino and the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians. Job seekers and community members attended the fair throughout the day, with the highest attendance from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. “It was a really good day and was very well received. We’re hoping to make it an annual event,” Hickson said. PHOTOS BY JACK DAV IS/SIUSLAW NEWS Nearly 200 people attended the free job fair Thursday at Three Rivers Casino Resort. ROTARY 6A Vision 2025 findings shared with community Siuslaw region residents receive results of 2-year project B Y J ACK D AVIS Siuslaw News INSIDE Siuslaw Pathways Regional Visioning Forum met at the Florence Senior Center March 16 to share the proposals and plans developed from 10 regional community meetings held since January. In addition to the regional meetings, the vision action team compiled input gathered from surveys, focus groups and community forums over the past two years. More than 75 people from Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B7 Coastal Events . . . . . . . . . . A10 Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A2 Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4 as far as Deadwood and Swisshome attended the meet- ing to hear the long-range vision for the Siuslaw region, focusing on what services and community objectives would be available by 2025. The Siuslaw region is defined as the area encompass- ing the Mapleton and Siuslaw school districts. At the meeting, the team shared 15 near-term action items that would require vol- unteer vision keepers to con- tinue development of those items. Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A5 SideShow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B6 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B Word on the Street . . . . . . . A7 Action items include devel- oping a community center, creating a Siuslaw Region Parks and Recreation District, establishing affordable region- al transportation, creating an upriver community health clinic, strengthening local jobs creation, creating affordable workforce housing and sup- porting local workforce reten- tion and others. “We were thrilled with the meeting,” co-coordinator Becky Goehring said. “We had a number of people step up to become vision keepers. They will carry the vision forward and help move things into reality, See THIS WEEK ’ S VISION 6A JACK DAVIS/SIUSLAW NEWS More than 75 interested community members gathered at the Florence Senior Center March 16 to hear the results of a two-year study conducted by the Siuslaw Pathways Regional Visioning Forum on the future of community services and resources in 2025. TODAY SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY 54 46 51 42 51 42 56 42 WEATHER Full Forecast, A3 S IUSLAW N EWS 2 S ECTIONS ❘ 22 P AGES C OPYRIGHT 2016 Sheriffs return to 24-hour patrol Response times expected to improve with more deputies B Y C HANTELLE M EYER Siuslaw News Lane County Sheriff’s Office has completed a two- year process to hire and train enough deputies to restore 24-hour patrol. “We know how important 24-hour patrol is to our resi- dents,” said Lane County Sheriff Byron Trapp. “We have high standards for our deputies and we have rebuilt a very talented and dedicated team focused on providing our community with quality public safety services.” Funding for 24-hour patrol was originally elimi- nated during significant budget reductions in 2010. Patrol was reduced to 16 hours per day, leaving eight hours per day with no deputies on duty in Lane County. The Lane County Board of Commissioners restored funding for 24-hour patrol in the 2013-2014 fiscal year and the Sheriff’s Office initi- ated recruitment, hiring and training immediately follow- ing the return of funding. “We’ve been working since then to hire and train enough staff to cover our roster,” Trapp said. The process of hiring and training a new deputy takes more than 12 months, including written and physi- cal testing, a rigorous inter- view, in-depth background check, medical and psycho- logical examinations, 16 weeks of academy training and 15 weeks of field train- ing. “Returning to 24-hour patrol means that we can respond more quickly to life- threatening, in-progress calls rather than calling in off- duty staff, which can create significant delays in serv- ice,” said Trapp. The new deputy sheriffs will be based at the main office patrol, but will assist the sheriff’s office with late- night calls throughout the county. “It won’t change our cov- erage to the south and west, but having people in this third shift means we can close the gap in response time,” he said. Trapp said there are 350,000 residents in Lane County and about 150,000 of them rely on the sheriff’s office for direct law enforcement. CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM