SIUSLAW NEWS | WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 2018 | 7A
with a “yes” vote, and another with a
“no.” Both ballots were discounted.
In another instance, an envelope
was completely empty.
“That was probably in protest,”
Nelson said. “There’s people who feel
strongly about not changing the dec-
laration. It’s like making amendments
to the U.S. Constitution. There’s peo-
ple who feel it’s a bad idea just on
principle.”
Because of the controversy sur-
rounding the vote, Florentine Estates
VOTING from page 1A
Out of the 403 ballots received, only
401 were countable. For instance,
one vote was discarded because a
resident sent a vote in through an
opinion poll the estate had sent out
earlier in the year, not on an official
ballot. That “yes” vote had to be dis-
counted.
And not all of the ballots received
had countable votes. In one instance,
one resident had sent in one ballot
TRANSPORTATION from page 1A
“At our last meeting, we were
in the process of issuing two
RFPs (requests for proposal)
— one for the vehicle and one
for the contractor,” Ahlen said.
“These processes are essentially
done at this point. We issued an
RFP for the vehicle and got mul-
tiple bids back.”
LTD selected a contractor to
build the vehicle, an Eldorado
Aero Tech 25-foot mid-size bus.
“This model is very similar
to your current Rhody Express
vehicle, in both appearance and
function,” Ahlen said.
When this new vehicle will be
built and available for use is still
6/30 Saturday only
8am-4pm
1210 Willow Court
Furnitues, clothes, antiques, etc.
Everything must go!
Moving Sale
Sat.-Sun. 6/30-7/1
9am-5pm
2175 23rd Street
Household items, LOTS of fi shing,
hunting, tools, yard tools,
men & women’s clothing, books,
toys & games!
uncertain, according to Ahlen,
as there are numerous buses be-
ing ordered by LTD and an exact
delivery date is not yet known.
“I’ve requested an ETA on
when the build will be finished,
and I haven’t gotten a response
yet,” he said. “This vehicle is part
of a nine-vehicle purchase that
LTD is currently doing, so we
are getting lots of vehicles. We
have asked for this one to be the
very first one that rolls off the
line.”
The second element of the
Florence to Yachats route that
Ahlen wanted to announce was
the selection of the company
chosen to run the route.
“We had four different bid-
Rummage Sale
Sat. June 30
9-5
Mapleton Grange,
East Mapleton Rd.
All these items are
used and new.
Fun & Food.
Come Meet Us!
Friday and Saturday
June 29th and 30th
10 am - 5 pm
All proceeds
go towards the
School lunch
program
FREE
garage sale signs
541-997-3441
with your ad
Spruce Point
Assisted
Living
375 9th
Street
worked to ensure that the vote count
was open to the public and transpar-
ent.
As for the voting process itself,
residents sent their votes in via a
sealed envelope which did have the
resident’s lot number written on it.
This allowed the vote counters to re-
cord who voted, but it did not show
who voted for what. Instead, the vote
counters discarded the envelopes
without looking at the ballots, toss-
ing the envelopes aside and placing
ders which we presented to our
bid proposal committee. Based
on their recommendations, we
selected one and issued a notice
to proceed. That notice has gone
to the LTD Finance Committee
and the notice to authorize was
given to River City Taxi,” Ahlen
said.
River City Taxi is a transpor-
tation service in Florence that
currently runs five taxis within
the City of Florence, as well as
the Rhody Express bus service.
“We do transportation in and
out of town, whereever you need
to go,” stated the River Cities
Taxi / Rhody Express Facebook
page.
For more information, call
541-997-8520, email rctaxi@
yahoo.com or visit ltd.org/
rhody.
The selection of River City
Taxi as the operator for the new
bus route was well received by
those in attendance, including
TAC committee member Don
Patton and ex-officio members
Ron Preisler and Josh Haring. In
addition, Glen Southerland and
Eric Rines from the city’s Plan-
ning Department also attended.
Ahlen answered a few more
questions about specific design
elements of the bus before con-
cluding his presentation.
Another oversight responsi-
bility that TAC has relates to the
use of the Rhody Express as a
means of providing bus service
to the city during holidays and
special events. The committee
acts in an advisory capacity to
the Florence City Council and
the need for bus service during
this summer’s high-profile
events was discussed in detail.
the ballots in a bin, unorganized.
Once the ballots were removed
from the envelops, the number of bal-
lots were counted, and work began on
recording the votes.
There were two teams of two vote
counters at work. One would read
off the results of the ballot while the
other would record the vote. When
one count was done, the ballots were
switched between the two teams, who
again counted the same votes.
There was a snag in the process
when both team’s votes didn’t match.
“One group had 45 and 5, the other
group had 44 and 6,” Nelson said. “If
they don’t match, we have to recount
everything all over again.”
So, the votes were recounted until
both sets matched. The process took
three hours in total.
Once completed, the Siuslaw News
was allowed to view the ballots and
procedures used in the vote to au-
thenticate the final tally was accurate
and that the process was fair.
PHOTOS BY CHANTELLE MEYER/SIUSLAW NEWS
Lane Transit District and the
City of Florence Transit Advis-
ory Committee announced that
River Cities Taxi was awarded
the bid to provide service in
the upcoming Florence-Yachats
Bus Line. River Cities unveiled
this news during May’s
Rhododendron Festival Grand
Floral Parade. The start date
has yet to be announced.
TAC eventually recommend-
ed that the city again provide
shuttle service to support the
Wings and Wheels event, which
will be held at the Florence Mu-
nicipal Airport on Saturday, July
7, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Shuttle service from the Siu-
slaw Middle School parking lot
to the airport will run from 9:45
a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
It was decided the TAC would
recommend not to offer service
for the school district’s “Nation-
al Night Out,” as the distance
from the elementary and middle
schools to Miller Park is short
and the route is well lit.
TAC said that another ma-
jor factor was the limited space
available for buses to safely navi-
gate in the parking area at Miller
Park.
The issue of safe navigation
was again cited as a major prob-
lem when considering wheth-
er to provide bus service to the
Old Town area next week on the
Fourth of July.
Josh Haring is the owner of
USLAW
I
S
Presents
3
s
n
g
i
S
S
Marina & RV Resort
& G R A P H
I C
F ULL S ERVICE C OMMERCIAL S IGN D IVISION
V EHICLE G RAPHICS
S IGN M AINTENANCE & R EPAIR
L IGHT B ULB S ERVICE
M OLD , M ILDEW & W EATHERPROOFING
B ANNERS & E VENT S IGNAGE
W INDOW G RAPHICS
GOT SIGNS?
PROFESSIONAL FIREWORKS SHOW
CELEBRATING OUR NATION’S INDEPENDENCE!
SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 2018 – 10:00 PM
< BARBECUE!
< LIVE BAND!
< WALK-IN (BRING A CHAIR)
< WATCH FROM LAND OR LAKE
Our sponsors made it happen…
ZOLEZZI INSURANCE AGENCY
TOREX ATV RENTALS
*Siltcoos Lake Resort *Siltcoos Station
*Wacoka Farm *Rick’s Quality Imports
*Shervin’s Tire & Automotive *Dunes City *
Please consider a donation:
www.gofundme.com/sparkle2018
4879 Darlings Loop, Dunes City, OR 97493
Call for details: 541-997-2841
info@Darlingsresortrv.com #iheartdarlings
(541) 997-8148
LOCATED AT: 7KH6KLSSLQ·6KDFN
the Rhody Express and will
manage the new bus route.
He said the large number of
vehicles trying to park in the
Port of Siuslaw parking lots and
the hundreds of people walk-
ing around Historic Old Town
Florence on Independence Day
makes driving a bus through the
area very dangerous and diffi-
cult.
“It is really a challenge to try
to maintain any kind of sched-
ule during the day. There are so
many cars and so many people
that there are times when it is
impossible to navigate the bus
safely,” Haring said.
The committee decided to
accept Haring’s advice and will
recommend that the Rhody Ex-
press not provide service on the
Fourth of July.
Another area that the TAC
wanted to clarify for the public
was the current schedule and
pick-up and drop-off locations
for the Pacific Crest bus routes
that take travelers from Coos
Bay to Eugene and back again.
The Pacific Crest route now
picks up and drops off passen-
gers at the Shell gas station, 951
Highway 101, seven days a week.
In Florence, Pacific Crest picks
up riders going to Eugene at 8:15
a.m. and drops off riders coming
from Eugene to Florence at 5:20
p.m.
For more information on
route schedules for the Rhody
Express, the Pacific Crest sched-
ule and the other travel support
options available to Florence
residents, visit ci.florence.or.us/
community/transportation-
florence.