The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current, April 07, 2018, SATURDAY EDITION, Image 1

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SATURDAY EDITION
Seasonal
business
feature
ODE TO THE
PAST
INSIDE
SPORTS — B
128TH YEAR ❘ ISSUE NO. 28
SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890
City of Florence
A great man
renews nonexclusive
Wilbur Ternyik
franchise agreement leaves a legacy of
with Charter for cable leadership, vision,
FLORENCE, OREGON
& a great steward of Oregon’s coast
passion and
integrity
B Y C HANTELLE M EYER
Siuslaw News
At the April 2 meeting of the Florence City
Council, the City of Florence negotiated a new
franchise agreement for cable with Falcon
Cable Systems Company II, L.P., locally
known as Charter Communications. Florence
has had franchise agreements with Charter
since at least 1983.
“We've been working on our Charter fran-
chise agreement for the last five years,” said
City Project Manager Megan Messmer. “For
me personally, this is an exciting moment,
since I've been working on this since about my
Day 1 with the city.”
The franchise agreement is a renewal of an
agreement made in 2003. That 10-year fran-
chise technically expired in 2013, Messmer
said, but a provision allowed the agreement to
continue during the negotiation period.
Negotiations have included updating the
city's requirements per Florence City Code,
including right of way management, and
Charter's revisions based on its corporate poli-
cies.
According to the staff report, Florence
exerts “management authority over the Public
Rights of Way to protect and efficiently man-
age the public's resources, to ensure fair and
non-discriminatory access to the public right-
of-way and to protect the public health, safety
and welfare.”
Florence obtains franchise fees from service
providers in the rights of way who provide
service to residents.
“We start out with a good set of rules, regu-
lations and operating procedures between the
city and an organization, and then we use our
franchise agreement to create specific details
for that relationship,” Messmer said.
Florence staff negotiated a nonexclusive
franchise with Charter Communications,
meaning that other users occupying the right
of way can provide the same services.
“Charter is not only the one providing cable,
internet and phone service,” Messmer said.
“We don't have any others that provide just
cable service, though.”
See
❘ APRIL 7, 2018 ❘ $1.00
FRANCHISE 7A
B Y M ARK B RENNAN
Siuslaw News
Wilbur Ternyik, longtime resi-
dent of Florence, passed away on
Monday, April 2. Ternyik was a
central figure in Florence, particu-
larly during the 1970s and ’80s,
when his conservation and
restoration work formed the
national framework for merging
environmental and development
efforts.
Ternyik attracted further atten-
tion of political leaders from both
parties, statewide and nationally,
when he worked with then
Governor Tom McCall to estab-
lish protocols for saving Oregon’s
beaches and coastal recreation
areas from environmental degra-
dation.
He was often seen around town
wearing a buckskin coat and he
famously gaveled official meet-
ings to order with a tomahawk.
While Ternyik was known for
these symbolic displays, he will
be remembered primarily for his
thoughtful, attentive manner, cou-
pled with the ability to bring
opposing philosophies into align-
ment.
Ternyik was born Jan. 26, 1927,
and graduated from Warrenton
High School, near Astoria, Ore.,
before enlisting in the Marine
Corps in 1944. He was proud of
his heritage, which included both
Native and European ancestry.
Ternyik was seriously wounded
in the leg during a battle on the
island of Okinawa in 1945, for
which he received a Purple Heart
Commendation. He returned to
Astoria for convalescence before
moving to Florence in 1947.
It was at this time that he turned
COURTESY PHOTO
Former Florence mayor, city councilor, Port of Siuslaw Commissioner and area resident Wilbur
Ternyik was instrumental in shaping Oregon’s relationship to the dunes.
his attention to the endeavors that
would make a permanent impact
on the coastal communities of
Oregon: constraining the inex-
orable spread of the coastal dunes.
He employed these experi-
ences, making modifications that
took into consideration local cir-
cumstances, to develop effective
ways to mitigate the spread of
“Wilbur was a great man who will be missed by many of
us that were fortunate enough to work with him. ... He had
a unique ability to bring people together, to find common
ground.”
— Oregon Sen. Arnie Roblan
Ternyik had a lifelong interest
in plants, which he grew into a
vocation in 1953, when he estab-
lished a dunes stabilization busi-
ness called Wave Beach Grass
Nursery.
He had spent considerable time
as a young man working with the
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Soil Conservation Service to learn
the best ways to use native plants
and grasses to minimize beach
loss to erosion.
coastal dunes.
This was the beginning of what
turned into a decades-long effort
by the young Ternyik to safeguard
the beaches of Oregon from
destruction.
Ternyik’s work to stabilize the
dunes included the development
of erosion control techniques that
have subsequently been embraced
by coastal towns across the coun-
try and around the world.
In 1971, Ternyik was selected
to provide advice and strategies to
the newly formed Oregon Coastal
Conservation and Development
Commission (OCCDC).
Ternyik’s advice was held in
unusually high esteem by legisla-
tors concerned with coastal devel-
opment, particularly McCall, who,
with other civic leaders, came to
trust and rely on the advice and
council of the man from Florence.
“Wilbur worked with Governor
Tom McCall in the 1970s to create
the beach and land use plan,
specifically to meet the needs for
the Oregon coast’s unique ecosys-
tems,” State Sen. Arnie Roblan
said.
Roblan considered Ternyik a
friend and described him as one of
those iconoclastic individuals who
has made a difference in the state,
most importantly in the areas of
ecology and environmental stew-
ardship.
See
LEGACY 5A
N ATIONAL C HILD A BUSE P REVENTION M ONTH
Reconciling the perceptions of child abuse
B Y D AMIEN S HERWOOD
For the Siuslaw News
(Editor’s note: In recognition of
Child Abuse Prevention Month,
Siuslaw News will be offering feature
stories, guest viewpoints and editori-
als focusing on this issue, beginning
with this special two-part series to
help identify child abuse and some of
the local resources for victims as well
as abusers.)
pril marks Child Abuse
Prevention Month, an annual
observance dedicated to rais-
ing awareness and promoting com-
munity efforts to address child abuse.
The 90by30 program, a University
of Oregon-based nonprofit, will plant
blue pinwheel gardens across the
county this month and encourage
volunteers to join local efforts that
will benefit future generations.
As its name suggests, the organi-
zation aims to reduce child abuse in
Lane County 90 percent by the year
2030 through coordinated programs
and public education.
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Suzanne Mann-Heintz, co-chair of
90by30’s West Lane Regional
Leadership Team, is helping to
spread awareness in Florence.
“Creating a community where
children are safe and happy is the
goal of this project,” she said.
Child abuse remains a pervasive
issue worldwide and continues to be
a problem in the U.S. According to
the U.S. Department of Health &
Human Services, an estimated
676,000 children were victims of
child abuse or neglect nationally in
2016, a 3 percent increase over the
previous four years.
“The estimate is that only about a
third of cases get reported,” said
Mann-Heintz.
In 2017, Child Protective Services
received 80,683 reports in Oregon.
“So you multiply that number by
three,” she said.
Typically each year, a little more
than half of received reports are
referred for investigation and a quar-
ter of those are founded for abuse or
neglect. Oregon totaled 7,063 cases
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and 11,077 victims in 2017.
Other reported cases were either
dismissed or handled with alternative
methods such as parental assistance.
Though definitions of abuse differ
state by state, these numbers are
reflective of nationwide trends and
tend to stay relatively proportional as
they scale more locally.
While the number of reports
received across the nation scores in
the millions, nearly half are screened
out of the system, lending suspicion
to a lack of understanding about
when abuse is taking place. Indeed,
public attention toward child abuse
often skews in the direction of the
more emotionally evocative forms of
physical or sexual abuse.
“That’s actually much less the
case,” said Mann-Heintz. “The most
frequent form of abuse is neglect.”
The Oregon Department of
Human Services (ODHS) reports
neglect as accounting for about 47
percent of cases in Lane County and
46 percent statewide.
The high numbers of neglect
THIS WEEK ’ S
reflect its broad criteria.
“Neglect includes things like mal-
nutrition, sanitation and inadequate
supervision,”
Mann-Heintz
explained.
Also on that list may be non-com-
pliance with healthcare recommen-
dations, being deprived of education
and exposure to drugs or violence.
The prevalence of neglect points
to parents’ and caregivers’ lack of
education about child-rearing,
though a general confusion as to
what constitutes “abuse” could also
play a role.
Precise definitions of child abuse
can be elusive. The perimeters vary
by family and culture worldwide,
including what constitutes responsi-
ble parenting and acceptable discipli-
nary action.
Further muddying the waters is the
pragmatic question of whom a defi-
nition aims to inform. A definition to
raise public awareness, for instance,
differs from definitions serving legal,
service or research purposes.
Nonetheless, in an effort to recon-
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cile the diversity of perceptions, the
World Health Organization (WHO)
Consultation on Child Abuse
Prevention in 1999 drafted a broad
and adaptable definition:
“Child abuse or maltreatment con-
stitutes all forms of physical and/or
emotional ill-treatment, sexual
abuse, neglect or negligent treatment
or commercial or other exploitation,
resulting in actual or potential harm
to the child’s health, survival, devel-
opment or dignity in the context of a
relationship of responsibility, trust or
power.”
Although determining which
cases meet the criteria may still be a
source of disagreement, there is near
consensus on classification.
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PREVENTION 9A