SIUSLAW NEWS | SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 2018 | 7A
SURVEY from page 1A
To that end, he sponsored and
helped pass a bill that authorizes
an additional $15 million, above
what has been approved by the
federal administration, for Ore-
gon ports. $837,000 of this new-
ly authorized money will make
its way to the Florence area to
dredge the route from the port to
the open ocean.
DeFazio is an active advocate
for the numerous small towns,
like Florence, that count on the
revenue from fisherman and
tourists to sustain and grow their
economy.
“Our ports along the Oregon
coast are the lifeblood of coast-
al communities, and our coastal
infrastructure supports commu-
nities all throughout the state,”
DeFazio said. “These critical in-
vestments will boost safety for
our recreational and commercial
fishing fleet, as well as create and
sustain thousands of jobs tied to
cargo, recreation and industrial
and other activities at Oregon’s
ports.”
Port of Siuslaw Manager Dave
Huntington was pleased to re-
ceive the news regarding the
unexpected monies obtained
by DeFazio, as the federal ad-
ministration had designated no
funding for water-related main-
tenance in Florence during this
fiscal cycle.
Huntington discussed the work
now underway at the port and
the upcoming work at the North
Jetty.
“We are in the process of doing
a bathymetric survey where we
plan to do some dredging, when
DUNES CITY from page 1A
“I do think something is nec-
essary because it concerns me
that, without anything in place,
there could be a serious prob-
lem,” City Council President
Robert Orr said.
But the agreement with the
county has many drawbacks,
according to council members,
including price, regulatory over-
sight and the ability to pay for
the program.
A final decision on the IGA
was tabled until further consid-
eration could be taken.
The discussion began with
Councilor Duke Wells asking
how many complaints come into
city staff regarding animal con-
trol issues.
“It varies, and it runs in spurts,”
our water works window opens,
which is from October to Febru-
ary,” Huntington said.
This survey analyzes the depth
of the river bottom and helps
form a topographical map.
“We get approximately 5,000
cubic yards of sediment that col-
lects in the port area on a yearly
basis,” Huntington said. “I believe
it’s been nine years since this ma-
rina has been dredged, so it is
long overdue.”
Huntington went on to point
out that the accumulation of de-
bris is not only a hazard to safe
navigation, but it is also a limit-
ing factor in generating revenue
for the port.
“There are certain sections
of the dock where we can’t rent
out slips at this time because it’s
too shallow due to built-up sedi-
ment,” he said.
The solution to this problem
begins with the work Huntington
is doing, using a simple technique
to map the dock area of the port.
His decision to utilize equipment
aboard his own boat will signifi-
cantly simplify the overall pro-
cess.
“We are using fish finders on
my boat to map the bottom of the
river throughout the marina,” he
said. “We are marking GPS points
and then taking a reading. Then
we take the information from the
bathymetric survey, which tells
us after we dredge, how much
material has been taken from the
river.”
Huntington believes the need
for dredging at small ports may
have been missed in the federal
budget, but not by DeFazio.
“Siuslaw, Gold Beach and Ban-
said Dunes City Administrator
Jamie Mills. “When we get one
complaint, we start getting sever-
al. They start rolling in, and then
they stop for a while. We might
get one call a year, we might get a
bunch of calls. You never what’s
going to happen.”
Because of the sporadic nature
of the issues, the IGA calls for
billing the city on an “as needed”
basis, instead of an annual fee
that would provide services year-
round.
However, the price for per-ba-
sis enforcement was consid-
ered too large by many council
members. The hourly rate for
enforcement services comes in
at $133.18 per officer, per hour.
That rate is calculated from the
time the Lane County Animal
Services Welfare Officer is dis-
don were cut out of the of the
budget this year, they actually had
zero funding in Trump’s budget,”
he said. “Peter Defazio is one of
those guys that works very hard
for small coastal ports like ours.
He shows strong leadership on
issues for our region, and this is
a good example of that commit-
ment. I think he understands how
important dredging is to smaller
ports that really depend on it, like
the Port of Siuslaw.”
In April, De Fazio and U.S. sen-
ators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merk-
ley wrote a letter to Army for Civ-
il Works Assistant Secretary R.D.
James, urging the administration
to fund critical navigation needs
of Oregon’s small coastal ports.
The additional $5.6 million was
authorized as a direct result of the
Oregon delegation’s efforts.
These additional funds will all
go to Oregon’s coastal ports.
“I’m pleased that the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers included
$837,000 for critical navigation
needs to ensure the safety and
navigability of the Siuslaw River,
including dredging, jetty moni-
toring and infrastructure man-
agement,” DeFazio said. “These
investments will ensure that the
local recreational and commer-
cial fishing fleet continues to
have safe passage to fishing and
crabbing grounds, and it will sus-
tain jobs directly tied to econom-
ic activity at the Port of Siuslaw.
“This is exactly the type of in-
frastructure investment we need
more of across the country and
I will continue to fight for these
smart investments on the Trans-
portation and Infrastructure
Committee.”
patched.
Dunes City Mayor Robert For-
sythe questioned what would oc-
cur if an officer was on the other
side of the county at the time of
a call.
It’s possible the control officer
would require a three-hour com-
mute just to get the city, let alone
take care of the problem. The
cost for one officer per incident
could potentially cost city tax-
payers more than $1,000.
The council was also hesitant
to move forward with a decision
because Lane County would re-
quire the city to follow the coun-
ty’s own codes.
“We have to adopt everything
the county does, even just for
those special circumstances,”
Councilor Susan Snow pointed
out.
Saturday, September 8, 2018
At Florence Golf Links
Florence, Oregon
FUUF to learn ‘key to thriving’
On Sunday, Aug. 12,
from 10 until 11 a.m., at the
Florence Unitarian Univer-
salist Fellowship, Dr. Ruth
Miller will lead the worship
service.
Her message is titled:
“Resilience: The Key to
Thriving.”
Before becoming a min-
ister, Miller studied and
practiced the systems sci-
ences, within which a basic
principle, called resilience,
explains when and how a
system thrives.
She also studied ecology,
and it turns out there is a
similar theory in that field.
Miller will share the the-
ories and how they apply to
our world — and actions
—today.
The fellowship is located
at 87738 Highway 101 at
Heceta Beach Road and is
wheelchair accessible.
Each service concludes
with refreshments and a
dialogue circle to explore
the ques-tions that come
up during each worship
service.
For more information,
visit www.florenceuuf.org.
Spirituali-Tea to explore topic of wealth
On Monday, Aug. 13, be-
ginning at 6:30 p.m., all are
invited to join a group of
people who enjoy finding
the common grounds in di-
verse spiritual thoughts and
paths.
The meeting is at 875
Seventh St. in Florence.
The topic is “Wealth.”
“As an individual fortu-
nate enough to have been
raised with both the mate-
rial comforts of the United
States as well as the spiri-
tual teachings of the Baha’i
Faith, I often think about
the rela-tionship between
wealth, poverty, and spiri-
tuality,” said James Heintz,
who hosts the Spirit-ua-
li-Tea gatherings with
his wife, Suzanne Mann-
Heintz.
He continued, “A num-
ber of questions naturally
arise when considering this:
Are wealth and material
development important, or
Those regulations are found
in Chapter 7 of Lane County
Code, which specifically deals
with animal control. The 14-
page document has regulations
on issues such as animal neglect,
abandonment, biting and other
dangerous behaviors.
The code also has dog licens-
ing requirements, which Dunes
City currently does not require.
The council has displayed
aversion to such requirements in
the past.
In 2005, the city passed spe-
cific code regulating animal con-
trol issues, but it was repealed in
2017 due to it being “intrusive,
unnecessary and expensive to
enforce,” per the appeal.
“We don’t have any staff to
take care of the problem,” For-
sythe said. “What if something
happened to staff on the job, or
tore up city property or severely
injured staff? We’re not insured
for that.”
As of now, the only real en-
forcement of animal issues rests
in the hands of the Lane County
Sheriff ’s Office.
In case of a life-threatening
emergency, Forsythe explained
that the department would send
an officer to determine what ac-
tion should be taken.
But if it’s a situation that does
not need the endangerment
threshold, city staff would be
forced to intervene. However,
without an official written code,
simply a distraction from
spiritual development? Is
it wrong for one to enjoy
physical comfort and mate-
rial prosperity? Is choosing
to renounce the material
advancement of the West,
for example, by moving to
a less developed part of the
world a noble sacrifice or
an unnecessary infliction
of physical suffering upon
oneself?”
Throughout the history
of religion, wealth and spir-
ituality have often appeared
to be in conflict with one
another.
One of the most well-
known Christian verses
supporting this notion is Je-
sus Christ’s ap horism that
“it is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of God”
(Matthew 19:24, King James
Bible).
This sentiment is simi-
city staff are helpless in issuing
citations.
Even if the city were to draft
code, its ability to impose it
would be limited.
“If we wrote a citation, they
may or may not pay it because
we don’t have a way to enforce,”
Forsythe said.
This is because the city cur-
rently does not have a proper ju-
dicial system to enforce citations.
In November, Dunes City has a
ballot proposal that would help
alleviate this problem, entering
into an agreement with a munic-
ipal judge that would hear cases
brought by the city.
While that would give city of-
ficials more leverage in enforcing
citations, it’s possible that the city
could lose funding for staffing
to enforce those citations in the
first place.
Due to a combination of a de-
cade-old oversight and changing
state regulations, Dunes City
could stand to lose anywhere
from $70,000 to $100,000 an-
nually. That money, which is di-
vided out to cities by the state, is
derived from a variety of shared
tax revenue sources including
cigarette, liquor and gas tax.
The catch is, only cities with
a property tax can receive those
funds. Currently, the city does
not have any sort of property
tax.
To help alleviate this problem,
a second measure will be on the
larly echoed by Baha’u’llah,
the prophet-founder of the
Baha’i Faith, in his collec-
tion of short spiritual max-
ims and statements known
as the Hidden Words.
Baha’u’llah declares, un-
ambiguously: “O ye that
pride yourselves on mortal
riches! Know ye in truth
that wealth is a mighty bar-
rier between the seeker and
his desire, the lover and his
be-loved. The rich, but for a
few, shall in no wise attain
the court of His presence
nor enter the city of content
and resignation.”
Bring thoughts on the
subject for open discussion.
The gathering will end at
8 p.m. with prayers for the
requests left in the Prayer
Pole in the gar-den of the
Florence Playhouse and
those shared by the group.
For more information,
contact Suzanne at 541-
590-0616.
November ballot. That measure
would request a small levy of
$0.005 per $1,000 of assessed
property value, which would
cost property owners anywhere
from $1 to $10 annually, de-
pending on property value.
While the city does not expect
a financial windfall from the
residents themselves through
the levy, the mere existence of a
“tax” would allow the city to re-
tain the state funds.
“Those two measures are crit-
ical to the existence of the city,”
Forsythe said. “If we have no
teeth in our codes, and no tax
money so we can get people to
do those things, then why are we
here?”
If the two measures don’t pass,
Forsythe and Wells believed the
future for animal control in the
city could be grim. If the levy
doesn’t pass, there would be no
funds to pay for the IGA. If the
municipal judge isn’t brought
in, no animal code enforcement
would exist.
They also said that if neither
measure passes, it’s possible the
entire city could be dissolved.
“We’ve been a bedroom com-
munity for a long time, but the
growing pains are getting ev-
ident,” Wells said. “I don’t like
larger government, but at the
same time you have to have liva-
bility. There are more and more
people living in Dunes City. It’s
not the same place that it was.”
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