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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 10, 2018)
THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM | SIUSLAWNEWS | WEDNESDAY EDITION | OCTOBER 10, 2018 | $1.00 @ SIUSLAWNEWS Fall Home Improvemen t SIUSLAW HOMECOMING INSIDE — B5 SPORTS — B INSIDE — A7 128TH YEAR | ISSUE NO. 81 FLORENCE, OREGON SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890 Florence begins second year of biennial budget & 2018 Wine Chowder Trail City Manager reviews June’s Quarterly Financial Report By Chantelle Meyer Siuslaw News PHOTOS BY JARED ANDERSON/SIUSLAW NEWS Historic Old Town Florence overflowed with lovers of wine and food this weekend for the eight annual Wine and Chowder Trail. It was a sommelier’s dream on Saturday as 13 wineries and tasting locations dotted the Old Town Map. A festival record number of wine lovers — up 40 percent from 2017 — tasted fresh fruits, fine wines and searched for the traditional glass floats hidden in Old Town Shops in hopes to win one of 30 of the treasured gifts. On Sunday, 12 local eateries tempted the crowds with their own toothsome clad chowder creations in hopes to win the “Best Chowder” award, which was bestowed for the second year upon Novelli’s Crab and Seafood, located on the dock at the Port of Siuslaw. And to help revelers appreciate the labors of creating such savory delicacies, 43 people trekked through the thick, low-tide mud of the Siuslaw River during low tide to dig for clams with local master clam- mer Mike Bones, who said the event was a resounding, fun success that was good “clean” fun for those who attended. Vital signs By Jared Anderson Siuslaw News INSIDE “How are you feeling?” Chris Martin, a paramedic for the new Mobile Integrated Healthcare pro- gram that is being tested in the Siu- slaw region, asked as he crouched next to the armchair. He sat down his paramedic bag, looking through. “I feel pretty good,” replied David Hole, who was resting in the chair. It was the Holes’ home, and Martin had come by for a regular visit. “My legs still aren’t back, and I have days like today.” Martin asked how the pain was going, what medications he was on. Then the big question: “How is the walking going?” David laughed, expecting the question. “Oh, I’ve been naughty,” he said. “Not so well?” Martin asked? “Naughty, naughty, naughty,” said David. David explained that his wife, Pat, had come down with a cold recently and wasn’t able to go for walks with him. To help heal from his back surgery, David is supposed to walk frequently, keeping his muscles from atrophying and allowing his Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . B10 Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Fall Home Improvement . . . B5 Kid Scoop . . . . . . . . . . . . . B7 How Mobile Integrated Healthcare keeps patients thriving and out of repeat visits to the ER back to remain strong. Generally, he walks around the neighborhood, but he hates to walk by himself. “I know, it’s no fun,” Martin said. “It isn’t fun anyway, but it’s less fun by yourself,” David said. “And I get concerned that I get over there with my walking sticks, fall down, and nobody can help me.” David explained that he always has balance issues with his leg be- ing weak. “Today, they’re really weak, and I don’t know why,” he said. “ David first met Martin five months ago. “Up until 2015 I was pretty damn healthy,” David said. “Then I had salmonella. Then a resulting aneu- rysm. And then I had open heart surgery. I think that’s what I got trapped in, it really affected my legs. Before I ever recovered from that, BAM, another back surgery.” It was the reasons for the back pain that kept him confused. He had gone into the emergency room (ER) three times because “they couldn’t give me answers.” He was told that it could be a urinary tract infection, then pancreatitis. But the remedies didn’t seem to be working. After the third ER visit, Pat got a Okto-Fur-Fest. . . . . . . . . . . . A7 Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4 Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A2 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B call from the hospital. “Someone said they had started this new program,” she said. “They knew we had been in the ER, and they have this follow up procedure. Would we like someone to come by? I thought, ‘Hey, another resource.’” “And it’s free!” David said. So, Martin came over to David’s home. He checked the home for safety, looking at everything from rug placement to if the smoke alarms worked. With David’s medi- cal history in hand, Martin was able to see exactly what David needed to be working on, and make sure that he was following through. Martin has been coming to the David house ever since, checking up on him, an- swering medical questions. David hasn’t made another trip to the ER. They’ve also developed a friendly, comedic banter. “We’ve formed quite a partner- ship here, Chris and I,” David said. “Chris is good for me because my wife is a wonderful person, and I love her dearly, but he always brings something in from the outside. It’s just Pat and I; our children are all grown and gone to other states, even. It’s nice to have that interac- tion for me.” THIS WEEK ’ S “How much is an old guy’s life worth?” Earlier in the day, Martin was just beginning his shift for Mobile Integrated Healthcare. Beginning early this year, Western Lane Am- bulance District partnered with PeaceHealth Siuslaw Region to create the program. It provides in-home services to three types of patients: 30-day readmissions, ER high utilizers and Emergency Medical Services high users. Martin is the only paramed- ic working in the pilot program, which is completely funded through a $200,000 donation from Peace Harbor Medical Cen- ter Foundation. No insurers are billed, and the patients never pay a dime. The goal of the program is to help curtail expensive emergency and medical expenses for the hos- pital and the patient by keeping frequent ER trips down. It’s not home healthcare, Mar- tin said, and it isn’t a permanent fixture in most of these patients lives — though he has been seeing some regularly for months. See HEALTHCARE page 5A TODAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY 62 45 67 45 66 45 69 49 WEATHER Full Forecast, A3 Florence City Council met for its first October meeting Monday night. The brief meeting covered several topics, mainly the Quarterly Financial Re- port for the period ending June 30, the end of the fiscal year. The preliminary report is now available and will go on to the city’s audit. “We’re halfway through your first ever biennial budget,” City Manager Erin Reynolds said. “You will most likely not see anything where we (are) over budget. We are on track and managing our projects within our budget, for both this first part of the biennium and as we are entering into the second year.” The report includes the last quarter of the 2017-18 year, comparing fund balances to bud- geted amounts and detailing the “City-wide — All Funds” report, with additional information on each separate fund. “You can see that we ended the total fund bal- ance at $10.2 million,” Reynolds said. “That’s a little bit better than our expectations and forecast for the year end. … Based on June 30 being our year end, most of our projects are just getting un- der way and just starting, or haven’t even began yet. You’ll see a lot of that spent down over the next year.” See FLORENCE page 5A Nov. 6 General Election ‘Critical to the existence of our city’ Dunes City’s ballot measures regarding marijuana, taxes, law It was a slow Monday night at the Dar- ling’s Resort and Marina Restaurant. A few By Jared Anderson customers sat at the bar, some waiting Siuslaw News for to-go orders. The Siuslaw News visited the restaurant that night to ask about three upcoming ballot measures for Dunes City, but when we got there, it was the Siuslaw School District bond that was all the buzz. One former student considered themselves passionate about renovating the school. When asked about Dunes City, the handful of people we spoke two, five in total, didn’t know there was actually anything on the bal- lot regarding the city. The reason why they were in the dark stemmed from their own views on Dunes City itself. “It’s not a city,” one person said. “It just has a permit to be a city. A city has amenities. Sewer, gutter, running water. We’re all on wells, we have septic. There’s no way to be a city.” See DUNES CITY page 6A S IUSLAW N EWS 2 S ECTIONS | 22 P AGES C OPYRIGHT 2018
