THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM
❘
/ SIUSLAWNEWS
❘
@ SIUSLAWNEWS
SATURDAY EDITION
❘ OCTOBER 28, 2017 ❘ $1.00
VIK XC
TEAMS
SWEEP
DISTRICT
SPORTS — B
127TH YEAR ❘ ISSUE NO. 86
SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890
FLORENCE, OREGON
CRIME
F LORENCE
WOMAN
CHARGED WITH
FELONY THEFT
Perfect pumpkins
Driftwood Shores accuses
former employee Christy
Bursaw of stealing tips
Florence resident Christy Lynn Bursaw was
arraigned at Lane County Circuit Court on Oct. 25
on a felony charge of aggra-
B Y M ARK B RENNAN
vated first-degree theft.
Siuslaw News
Bursaw, 44, had been an
employee of the Driftwood
Shores Resort and Convention Center for the last 18
months and was allegedly stealing money from her
co-workers for much of that time.
Driftwood Shores General Manager Martin
Alletson believes Bursaw was stealing tips from
employees of the company’s Surfside Restaurant by
changing paperwork reflecting tip amounts intend-
ed for servers.
“Christy was the bookkeeper here and she
worked under an accountant. When staff fills out
the reports at the restaurant, they also put on what
the charged tips are. She would look and see what
the amount was and she would reduce the charge tip
on the envelope and take the cash out,” Alletson
said. “She was pocketing the difference between
what she wrote down as charged tips and what the
actual tip was.”
Bursaw’s alleged theft was an ongoing enter-
prise, beginning soon after Bursaw was hired, and
which apparently netted the bookkeeper more than
$17,000.
Alletson said the fact that an employee he trust-
ed had stolen from his company was a disappoint-
ment. What was even more disheartening was that
other employees were affected by Bursaw’s actions.
“She was taking money from her co-workers and
that’s what irritates me the most,” he said. “She said
she was sorry for her actions and she was just try-
ing to make ends meet, but she was stealing from
people that make less money than her.”
See
Coast Radio’s 28th annual
Great Pumpkin Giveaway opens
weekend of Halloween events
CST KCFM Coast Radio handed out 3,000
pounds of free pumpkins to area youth on
Thursday, continuing a long Halloween tradi-
tion. The Lemhouse family, Siuslaw Valley Fire and
Rescue and the Florence Siuslaw Lions Club all
helped with the event, including providing activi-
ties, photo opportunities and a free hot dog
lunch. Check out more Florence-area Halloween
events for kids and families on page A6.
K
PHOTOS BY CHANTELLE MEYER/
SIUSLAW NEWS
THEFT 8A
‘Do we really want to be a city?’
B Y J ARED A NDERSON
Siuslaw News
A
INSIDE
s Dunes City Councilors sat in
a special work session on Oct.
17 to discuss the future of current
marijuana grow operations in the city,
newly appointed Mayor Robert
Forsythe posed a question to the
council.
“Do we really want to be a city?” he
asked. “Are we acting like a city? Are
we providing services? We don’t have
a police force and we don’t have a
library. We can write citations but
nobody pays them because you have
no way to make people pay them. We
don’t have any agreements with any of
the court systems. I think the question
is, do we want to act like a city, or do
we want to become a county again or
‘Florence south’?”
The months-long process that led to
this point, coupled with the divisive
debate that accompanied it, laid bare
many of the issues currently facing
Dunes City.
Through a complex combination of
vague laws, coupled with an inability
to reasonably enforce them, slim city
coffers
and
miscommunication
between city officials, the recent mar-
ijuana debate made the city’s problems
starkly clear.
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C
Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3
Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4
Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A2
The work session’s focus on mari-
juana stemmed from the council’s
Sept. 13 decision regarding the future
of the marijuana agricultural industries
in the city.
At issue were three different parties
that had applied to have grow sites
within city limits. While the process to
become a certified marijuana grow in
the state of Oregon is lengthy, one part
of the process requires applicants to
submit a Land Use Compatibility
Statement (LUCS).
The purpose of the LUCS, which is
required by the Oregon Liquor
License Commission (OLCC), is to
determine whether a land use proposal
is consistent with a local government’s
comprehensive plan and land use reg-
ulations. City representatives must
review their ordinances to make sure
marijuana operations conform.
Dunes City has had two completed
LUCS’ for quite some time, with one
approved for grower Valerie Cain-
Mathis back in February, though pub-
lic outcry about the issue didn’t start
until August.
The public, who was for the most
part unaware of the LUCS, called for
the grows to be shut down and further
grows be permanently banned in the
city.
In a Dunes City Council public
Sideshow . . . . . . . . . . . . . A10
Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B
This Week on the Coast . . . . A6
Weather Data . . . . . . . . . . . A2
meeting held Sept. 13, councilors
passed Ordinance 245, which allowed
the existing grow operations to remain
in the city, but banned further opera-
tions from being approved until the
November 2018 elections, where the
public could have the opportunity to
vote the ban into law.
The main reason the council decid-
ed to keep the existing grows was
because two separate law firms — one
from Lane Council of Governments,
the other Speer Hoyt LCC — had
agreed that city codes did not prohibit
the grows. The LUCS were legally
sound, in the attorney’s opinions.
While there have been three grows
discussed, currently OLCC has
received just two LUCS, and one of
those was from Cain-Mathis, accord-
ing to Acting City Administrator Jamie
Mills.
At this time, it is unclear if the third
grow will be grandfathered in and
allowed to stay, or would fall under the
city’s ban as a new applicant.
Some members of the public were
not fully satisfied with Ordinance 245,
and turned their focus to the existing
grows. Their primary argument was
that the LUCS were filed in error and
that city officials did not properly pre-
pare them or interpret local laws cor-
rectly.
THIS WEEK ’ S
At the Oct. 11 city council meeting,
citizens asked the council to review
the LUCS, which the council agreed to
do, leading to the Oct. 17 work session
questioning the future of the city.
“As I’ve been saying all along, we
spend a lot of money on attorneys who
say we have to allow these three com-
mercial grow operations,” said
Councilor Robert Orr. “However,
we’re also being told by our commu-
nity that the attorneys are wrong. …
They’re preaching to the choir when
they’re yelling at us. We’ve done all
we can do because we did what our
attorneys told us to do. We can’t do
any different than that.
“But if the community has another
way, man I’m all for it. I’m not saying
there were any errors made. I think
certain community members seem to
imply there were, but whether they
were or not, I think there’s another
way to looking at this — and if there’s
a way to right our wrong, then we need
to right that.”
But Councilor Duke Wells didn’t
think that there was a way around it.
“Remembering what we discussed
with our attorney, and as much as I
don’t want these things in Dunes
City, as far as I can see the ship has
sailed on this,” Wells said. “I don’t
see where I can go back in and redo
TODAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
60 49
60 47
66 44
63 47
WEATHER
Full Forecast, A3
Dunes City’s marijuana debate raises
questions of the city’s issues, future
these, … but I don’t see anything we
can do.”
Forsythe agreed, and the council
decided to contact the city’s attorney
for further input, which they received
the next day in a special executive
session that was closed to the public.
After the executive session, the
council made a decision not to with-
draw the LUCS. The marijuana grows
could continue.
The Siuslaw News requested the
attorney reports that cleared the
LUCS for approval, but were turned
down due to confidentiality.
However, there are clues to the attor-
ney’s reasoning, and many of those
reasons cut to the heart of the city’s
problems, the first of which are poor-
ly written city ordinances.
Before the council took its final
vote to allow the grows to stay, Day
Law and Associates, attorneys repre-
senting the operations, submitted a
letter to the city for public record.
The letter laid multiple reasons why
the council should not withdraw the
LUCS, including a legal explanation
for the grows.
The letter pointed out that Dunes
City Development Code 155f.1.3
defines agriculture as “The tilling of
S IUSLAW N EWS
3 S ECTIONS ❘ 24 P AGES
C OPYRIGHT 2017
See
DUNES CITY 7A