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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2017)
6 A SIUSLAW NEWS ❚ SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2017 District from 1A Haberman was one of eight members of the LifeMed com- mittee. In the March 8 letter, Langborg stated, “It was report- ed that during the March 8 LifeMed meeting, you made statements about SVFR not car- ing enough about their volun- teers to pay for the LifeMed membership. You were also reported to have stated that your supervisor, Julie Brown, had made a final decision that WLAD board members would not receive free LifeMed mem- bership. Both statements are sig- nificant because they shine a very negative light on our organ- izations and our employees and are not founded on facts.” Both Haberman and WLAD Director Anne Stonelake, who also is a LifeMed committee member, said she did not make the statements. Stonelake said, “I am the only one, except for Suzanne Curtis, who was at the (March 8) LifeMed meeting. Cindy did nothing wrong. Cindy didn’t say these things. I was there.” In addition to the LifeMed issue, Langborg said, “In Transit from 1A In preparation for the July launch, LTD has ordered a 25- foot Ford E450 Eldorado Aerotech with a 1,000-pound Braun lift to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The vehicle would also have one or more bicycle racks. Ahlen said LTD has contacted four prospective operators, Rhody Express, Lincoln County Transit, Pacific Crest Bus Lines and Caravan Airport Transportation for bids for the one-year contract. “We are going to be holding a short competitive bidding process,” Ahlen said. “If the pilot project proves viable, then we would go out for a larger compet- itive bid.” The Yachats terminal will be at the intersection of Third Street and Highway 101, the southern most service point for Lincoln County Transit. Ahlen said, “People can get right off the connecting bus in Yachats and hopefully get right on connecting service for Florence.” At this time, the Grocery Outlet parking lot on 20th Street and Highway 101 is the proposed Florence termination point. “We’ve had really strong feed- back for Grocery Outlet being the turnaround point. It is the more appealing option because it is between the northern and south- ern loops of Rhody Express serv- ice. That gives people the most options to connect,” Ahlen said. During the meeting, several participants suggested the route might include stops at Peace Harbor Medical Center off Ninth Street and the Fresenius Kidney Care dialysis center on Kingwood Street. Yachats does not have a hospi- tal or dialysis center. The closest facilities are in Newport. According to Ahlen, adding January. Ms. Haberman was rep- rimanded because she had writ- ten about $3,700 worth of checks. She was not authorized to do that. She raised the credit limit by $6,000. In all honesty, she had written them because there was a situation at the time where we had some personnel that were at training and they did need to have their lodging paid for. We were never notified.” Langborg also said that Haberman was struggling with software skills. “We went to great lengths to provide training to her (and) to provide council to her,” Langborg said. Haberman’s supervisor Brown and WLAD Operations Manager Matt House both spoke to diffi- culties in working with Haberman. Regarding the check writing issue, Haberman said, “Actually, I was authorized to do those transactions. They came out of the debit Visa account. I was still authorized to transact and do those transactions. Those checks were used to secure the reserva- tion only. I did not write them. I provided those check numbers to secure the reservations only.” Langborg replied, “The issue with that was not so much that you did it, but that you didn’t let anyone know.” Haberman then read a state- ment regarding the March 8 LifeMed committee meeting. “Chief Langborg stated that I had verbatim made the comment, ‘He did not care enough about SVFR volunteers for the district to have paid for their 2016/17 LifeMed membership program.’ At this point, I was suspended from work. Up until now, I have no documentation from Chief Langborg or his staff as to the truth or merits.” She told the board about a meeting with Chief Langborg, SVFR Operations Manager Jim Dickerson and herself on March 13. “I was taken into the new computer room and questioned about the statements that I allegedly talked about at the LifeMed meeting. Chief Langborg was clearly very mad, red faced, accusing me of state- ments that I never made,” Haberman said. “I had no representation from my employer, WLAD, in this verbally abusive reprimand,” she added. Langborg said the intent of the meeting was to get her side of the story. Additional grievances and counter-grievances were made by both sides during the hour and-a-half session, including charges that Haberman sent more than 200 personal emails during work hours from June to March. Haberman closed by saying, “Thank you all for hearing my appeal. I hope the candidates (for board directors) will investigate and demand information about the circumstances that have led me here today.” Several people gave state- ments in support of Haberman, including one from Stonelake. Before voting, Stonelake said, “If I was at the helm, I would hire her back, but I think it would be foolish for her to come back here.” Commissioners then voted unanimously to uphold the ter- mination. Prior to the termination appeal discussion, the board gave a plaque of recognition to retiring commissioner Bob Sneddon for his more than 20 years of service as WLAD commissioner. Rick Yecny was then sworn in to fill the vacant position until a fulltime commissioner is voted into office in the May 16 Special Election. the hospital to the stops would add about a half hour to the Florence end of the trip. He is more in favor of persons wanting to go to the hospital or dialysis center get off at Grocery Outlet and take the Rhody Express. “We would have to make sure there is not too long a wait to catch the Rhody Express. If you had to wait an hour, that would be a rough wait,” he added. The option of having the serv- ice stop at popular tourist desti- nations along the route — such as Cape Perpetua Interpretive Center, the Hobbit Trail and Sea Lion Caves — was also dis- cussed. “Some things we are only going to learn by actually rolling out the pilot project itself,” Ahlen said. LTD has not yet determined the fare for the one-way or roundtrip service. The next meeting is scheduled for May 16 in Yachats. For more information, contact Ahlen at john.ahlen@ ltd.org. History from 1A shapes and materials into its construction. It was also paint- ed a dark blue, almost black color, which led to it’s nick- name, the “Blackbird.” This was done so the aircraft could avoid detection while on reconnaissance missions. Murphy is an engaging and dignified speaker. The retired colonel’s insights and experiences during the Cold War are informative especially now with the increase in bel- ligerent rhetoric between the leaders of North Korea and the U.S. The SR-71 was one of the fastest planes on the planet. This allowed pilots to fly over enemy territory so rapidly that missiles and gunfire were inef- fective in deterring observa- tion. The flip side of this incredible speed was the need for a very precise mix of jet fuel, oxygen and air speed. Once, on a classified spy mission, Murphy was faced with the prospect of crashing into enemy territory. His mission was to fly north along the coast of Korea. He was traveling at three times the speed of sound, Mach 3, and suddenly lost the power in one of his engines. In an attempt to restart the engine, Myrphy initiated a series of aerial maneuvers that he hoped would restart the engine. It didn’t work and he found himself in a situation that few have survived. “Now I have no engine on the right side and the airplane is not responding. I have North Korea over there and you’re not supposed to go over North Korea,” Murphy said. “So I slammed in as much rudder as I could and that started bring- ing the nose over. Then I put in as much stick as I could, and that stopped the airplane from going right. But then the left engine flared out, and now I’m at 74,000 feet with no engines.” There was an audible gasp in the crowd at this point. Murphy then related how he attempted to restart his engines as his plane plummeted to earth. He went through a num- ber of steps that were supposed to restart the engines. Ultimately, he was success- ful. “Fortunately, I was able to get the airplane into a flyable position at about 65,000 feet and I was able to start the good engine again. Now we were about 60 miles south of Seoul and we were eventually able to return to base safely,” he said. Murphy is currently a resi- dent of Florence and he answered questions and talked warmly with the crowd after speaking. The OCMM is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is located at 2145 Kingwood St. Florence Food Share’s Saturday Open Hours Food Share will begin receiving an additional shipment of food from Food for Lane County on the second Friday of each month starting on May 12th; therefore, our Saturday open hours are changing. For the month of May 2017, Food Share will be open May 13th and 20th. Starting in June and for the foreseeable future, we will be open on the 2nd and 4th S aturday of each month. On Saturdays, we are open from 10am-1pm. “Self-shopping” ends at 12:30 and the lobby closes at 1pm. Thank you. Siuslaw News & City Lights Cinemas present TOMORROW TAKE CONCRETE STEPS TO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE MAY 4TH • NOON & 6PM AT CITY LIGHT CINEMAS Free admission to the Florence Green Fair May 6th at the Florence Events Center with your ticket stub. fl orencegreenfair.com
