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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (March 31, 2018)
THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM ❘ / SIUSLAWNEWS ❘ @ SIUSLAWNEWS 128TH YEAR ❘ ISSUE NO. 26 SATURDAY EDITION SWING GAME C AR C ARE G U IDE SPORTS — B INSIDE — A11 & A12 SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890 FLORENCE, OREGON N ATIONAL P OETRY M ONTH Ballots sent out for April 16 OCHS election April celebrates poetry, spoken word form S TORY AND P HOTO B Y M ARK B RENNAN Siuslaw News Poetry often looks to nature for inspiration. The Siuslaw region, with its abundant waterways, fertile greenery and diverse wildlife, is at last beginning to feel the touch of spring — which has many poets and photographers rejoicing. “Poetry is when an emotion has found thought and the thought has found word.” —Robert Frost, American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry April is National Poetry Month. Established in April 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month is the largest literary celebration in the world. Tens of millions of educators, writ- ers, librarians, booksellers and poets participate in the event by highlight- ing the role poetry has played and continues to play in American culture. “Poetry can be funny, scary or dark, just like any other writing,” said Siuslaw Public Library Director Meg Spencer. “I often think of the differ- ence between poetry and other kinds of writing as similar to the difference between speaking and singing.” The Siuslaw Public Library, 1460 Ninth St. in Florence, will participate in the celebration of poetry through- out April and will begin festivities with a free concert on Wednesday. See POETRY 9A Advance Directive workshop helps people plan end-of-life care Home Health and Hospice’s free event informs the public about options available B Y M ARK B RENNAN Siuslaw News Peace Harbor Home Health and Hospice will be offering a free work- shop on health care decisions and advance directives on April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Lane Community College Florence Center, 3149 Oak St. The event is meant to coincide with National Health Care Decisions Day and will focus on end-of-life issues. Norma Wood will be coordinating ❘ MARCH 31, 2018 ❘ $1.00 the workshop. She said she feels the event will benefit people contemplat- ing the use of an advance directive in their future plans. According to Wood, PeaceHealth Peace Harbor Home Health and Hospice social workers have been providing quarterly workshops at Lane Community College for the past year, and that the workshops are free to the community. April 16 is National Health Care Decisions Day, an initiative of The T HE Conversation Project, which works in collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. The LCC workshop will be con- versational in style, according to Wood, with the goal of putting peo- ple at ease in talking about end-of- life issues, concerns, experiences and choices. The Home Health and Hospice workshops are focused on presenting information about the health care advance directive, which includes Oregon’s Advance Directive Forms and KEY Conversations Planning Guide to assist individuals and fami- lies in making health care decisions. “The advance directive allows individuals to express wishes for care and life-sustaining treatments if they are ever unable to speak, and to authorize a health care represen- tative to make health care decisions for them,” Wood said. See 13 candidates have been approved to run for 7 open seats on board B Y M ARK B RENNAN Siuslaw News The Oregon Coast Humane Society (OCHS) has taken a major step forward in the implementation of the plan agreed upon by the non- profit group and the Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ) to seat a new board of directors. At the end of last year, a DOJ rec- ommendation strongly suggested that an election for the OCHS board be held as soon as possible. The DOJ had conducted an inquiry after it received complaints regarding the appointment of members to the board. DOJ’s inquiry resulted in the res- ignation of all previously seated directors and the establishment of a plan, approved and overseen by the DOJ, to elect a board in a legal man- ner. DOJ further required that member- ship lists and those candidates inter- ested in serving on the OCHS board be vetted by the department to insure the validity of their candidacy and membership in the organization. Elizabeth Grant, Senior Assistant Attorney General at the Oregon DOJ, said the vetting process has been concluded and eligible voters should be receiving ballots and can- didate information packets this week. The OCHS Board of Directors Election Ballot has 13 candidates listed. Members are required to select no more than seven to serve. At www.oregoncoasthumanesoci- ety.org/boardelection2018/, OCHS has listed the candidates’ names, along with an Adobe PDF link with more information. WORKSHOP 8A See ELECTION 8A RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS Part I: Exploring the arguments, myths of people for and against guns B Y J ARED A NDERSON Siuslaw News “Y INSIDE ou cannot pussyfoot around it, it’s about guns,” Karin Radtke said as she stood with a group of like-minded gun reform advocates during a demonstration on March 24. The march was held in solidarity with the March for Our Lives cam- paign, a nationwide protest asking for various forms of gun reform. The reasons people gave for attending the Florence march were varied. Some said they were there to Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B7 A3 A4 A2 support the teenagers of Stoneman Douglas High School. But for Radtke, who helped organ- ize the Florence march, the whole conversation boiled down to guns. “You can’t say it’s about the Second Amendment, you can’t say it’s about safety in schools,” Radtke continued. “No, it’s about guns. Every country all over the world has mental health problems. But this is the only country where you have such an ingrained, set in stone men- tality of gun ownership, that it’s a problem.” The debate over the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms has been raging for years, with some calling for limited restrictions on guns, others demanding a com- plete ban on them, and multiple vari- ations of the argument in between. For reformers, various claims have Sideshow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B6 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B This Week on the Coast . . . . A7 Weather Data . . . . . . . . . . . A2 been made about guns and the culture that surround them, from accusations that semi-automatic rifles only exist to kill, and that bans on weapons like the heavily contested AR-15 will lead to a safer society. However, most of those inter- viewed at Saturday’s march had no experience with guns, neither owning nor using them. The terminology they used was different from gun rights advocates, and proposals that they made to curb gun violence var- ied in specificity. “If young kids can walk into a house and get a gun and kill them- selves or somebody else because it’s easy for them to do, I don’t care what the definition of gun ‘safety’ is, or what an assault rifle is,” Maureen Miltenberger, who helped organize the Florence demonstration, said. “I think definitions of who knows what THIS WEEK ’ S about what isn’t important when our kids are dying.” But for gun rights advocates, defi- nitions are vital. A March 2018 article by the liber- al-leaning news blog ThinkProgress stated, “Until those who want ration- al gun control laws master the basics of talking about firearms, they will never be taken seriously by their National Rifle Association (NRA) funded counterparts when discussing gun control legislation. What’s more, they will never, within their own cau- cuses, successfully craft effective policy until they can speak about guns with more dexterity.” However, gun reformers don’t own the market on lack of informa- tion. Many myths permeate the talk- ing points of gun rights advocates, which will be examined in this series as well. TODAY SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY 56 40 52 40 53 38 56 45 WEATHER Full Forecast, A3 To help parse the facts of the debate, over the next month the Siuslaw News will be examining some of the myths surrounding the issue through analysis of articles and studies done on the issue. As with any controversial topic, many of the presented facts are in dispute. Much of this has to do with restrictions placed on some of the research regarding the issue, but how this came about illustrates how rhet- oric can derail a conversation before it even begins. The majority of the statistics and studies referenced in this series come from independent sources. One of the main reasons for this stems from a 1996 congressional amendment, sponsored by Arkansas Rep. Jay Dickey. See S IUSLAW N EWS 2 S ECTIONS ❘ 22 P AGES C OPYRIGHT 2018 SPECIAL SERIES 9A