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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 2017)
THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM ❘ / SIUSLAWNEWS ❘ @ SIUSLAWNEWS SATURDAY EDITION LADY VIKS ❘ JANUARY 14, 2017 ❘ $1.00 SCRATCH TIGERS DR. KING RETROSPECTIVES SPORTS — B OPINION — A4 & A5 Tonight Saturday, January 14th Headliner Danny O’Keefe Tickets available online or at the door www.wintermusicfestival.org 127TH YEAR ❘ ISSUE NO. 4 SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890 FLORENCE, OREGON Construction accident takes life of Florence man Asa Hammon dies in freak construction site mishap B Y J ACK D AVIS Asa Hammon, a Florence native and former Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue (SVFR) battal- ion chief, died Wednesday, Jan. 11, in a con- struction site acci- dent at 43rd Street and Nandina Drive. According to SVFR Fire Marshall Sean Barrett, the 52 year-old Hammon died when a hydraulic line to an excavator broke, causing the bucket of the excavator to careen and strike Hammon. Barrett said, “They Asa Hammon were putting in a de- watering well. The midsized excavator was not in operation at the time.” Emergency medical services personnel arrived and immediately began CPR. They transported Hammon to Peace Harbor Medical Center where he was pronounce deceased. Hammon served as a volunteer for SVFR from 1981 until his retirement in 2010. At the time he retired he held the position of battalion chief. See HAMMON 7A Weese to help make ‘Vision’ plan a Florence reality Siuslaw Vision Keepers hire Tim Weese as coordinator B Y C HANTELLE M EYER Siuslaw News The Siuslaw Region Vision is entering a new phase in its 10-year plan: the hiring of Tim Weese as vision coordinator. According to Vision Keeper co-chairs Susy Lacer and Jo Beaudreau, a grant from the Ford Family Foundation provided funding for the part-time position. Lacer said, “We’re calling Tim’s position the vision coordinator — I see that as a huge part not only of his job, but of the vision as a whole. We’re trying to coordinate all the great efforts that are happening throughout our region and support them to keep moving forward.” See Monday, Jan. 16 Eighty-eight years ago tomorrow, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Ga., a middle child with an older sister and younger brother, and the son of a Baptist minister. King’s father was a fearless protester of segregation whose example had a profound impact on his son. The result led to one of our nation’s greatest orators and most influential figures in the Civil Rights and social justice movements. In 1963, King delivered his now famous “I Have a Dream” speech, galvanizing an audience of more than 250,000 people blanketing the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Though his assassination four years later on April 4, 1968, silenced his voice, his dream’s message of acceptance and social unity continues to echo through the decades some 51 years later... W hen the architects of our republic wrote the magnif- icent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the unalien- able rights of life, liberty and the pur- suit of happiness. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of grad- ualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injus- tice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment... But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. We must forever conduct our strug- gle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. We must understand that our free- dom is inextricably bound to the free- dom of others. We cannot walk alone. I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling dis- cords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail togeth- er, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” If America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last. MORE SPECIAL COVERAGE Pages A4 and A5 VISION 7A New Dune City Council members get to work Council members,marijuana tax and dog licenses top agenda B Y M ARK B RENNAN Siuslaw News MARK BRENNAN/SIUSLAW NEWS INSIDE Dunes City Council members are sworn in Thursday. Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B7 Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . B4 MLK retrospectives . . . . . . . . A5 Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4 Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A2 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B Dunes City held its first City Council meeting of the year on Thursday, Jan. 12, with a full agenda of items to consider. The first item taken up was the swearing-in of the council with THIS WEEK ’ S two new members taking the oath of office. The council accepted the resignation of Ken Platt, due to family issues, entered into the record a letter from Mayor Rebecca Ruede and then swore in new councilors Robert Orr and Alan TODAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY 48 31 51 35 55 47 53 49 WEATHER Full Forecast, A3 Montgomery. There were three other sig- nificant issues discussed and voted on by the new council. The first was the approval of the installation of a radio sys- tem by the Florence Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) to facilitate communi- cation by Dune City officials in the event of a natural disaster. Bob Pine, Emergency Coordinator for ARES, made a presentation that outlined the group’s plan to donate the equipment necessary to allow S IUSLAW N EWS 2 S ECTIONS ❘ 20 P AGES C OPYRIGHT 2017 See COUNCIL 7A CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK Siuslaw News
