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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2019)
SN THESIUSLAWNEWS.COM TH SATURDAY EDITION | SEPTEMBER 21, 2019 | $1.00 I NSIDE ! Siuslaw News VOL. 129, NO. 76 NEWS & VIEWS THAT DEFINE OUR COMMUNITY F LORENCE , O REGON Postal Customer Florence, Ore. 97439 PAYING RESPECTS WEATHER Lane Community College visits Florence Center Negotiations now open for sale of Florence land parcel By Chantelle Meyer Siuslaw News political persuasions. “There will be 10 volunteers participating at the library on Tuesday and it is a completely non-partisan event,” Radtke said. “Volunteers at the information table will be a mixed group, some registered as Democrats and some Republicans, and maybe also oth- er parties.” Florence Mayor Joe Henry also believes the best way to have a positive impact on the community we live in is to exercise our right to vote. The Lane Community College (LCC) Board of Education met at the LCC Florence Center on Wednesday for the first board meeting of the 2019-20 school year. The board meets in Flor- ence once a year, with most of its public meetings held the second Thursday of each month in the boardroom of the college’s main campus in Eugene, 4000 East 30th Ave. LCC President Margaret Ham- ilton opened the meeting with her President’s Report. “I want to welcome everybody to the Florence campus. I actu- ally can’t think of a better way to start the year than coming to visit beautiful Florence, and you even have sun for us. Thank you,” she said. LCC Florence Center Dean Russ Pierson then thanked the seven-member board of educa- tion, staff and community mem- bers for making the 1.5-hour drive between the main campus and the Florence campus. “This highlights how import- ant the Florence Center is for all of us who live, work and play here in the Siuslaw region,” he said. “We appreciate all the ways you support our rural students. One of the taglines I hear about LCC is ‘the community’s college,’ and here in Florence we describe the work we do at our extension center is that we endeavor to be this community’s college, too.” According to Pierson, of the region’s population of 9,000, more than 150 students are in- volved in credit courses through LCC Florence Center, including online classes. He also detailed ways that LCC staff has worked to engage area students, includ- ing Hamilton’s participation in the Oregon Coastal Caucus Economic Summit in August. “She spoke eloquently about the need to support students in our rural communities, and likewise spoke about Lane’s con- tinued commitment to Career Technical Education (CTE),” Pierson said. “We’re working hard on things … in regard to CTE, which is always difficult in a smaller community.” Later in Hamilton’s report, she talked about a $140,000 grant LCC received from the Expand- ing Community College Appren- ticeships initiative of the Amer- ican Association of Community Colleges. The goal of the grant is to increase the number of ap- prentice programs and services throughout the country, and Lane’s project will be conducted over three years. See VOTE page 8A See LCC FLORENCE page 7A Cloudy with a high of 70 and a low tonight of 57. Full forecast on A3 COMMUNITY National POW/MIA Recognition Day O PHOTOS BY MARK BRENNAN/SIUSLAW NEWS n Friday, local veterans from the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans coordinated the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Day ceremony in Florence, which was held at Veteran’s Memorial Park on Bay Street in Historic Old Town. The number of Americans who remain missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Gulf War and other conflicts is more than 80,000. POW and MIA Recognition Day was established in 1979 and is now held on the third Friday of September each year. This national recognition day is the time when Americans are asked to pause and reflect on the sacrifices made by the military men and women who are imprisoned or unaccounted for as a result of their military service. OPB features FRAA artist in September INSIDE — A3 SPORTS Port of Siuslaw continues seasonal upgrades Pier improvements, long-awaited dredging to start soon By Mark Brennan Siuslaw News Mapleton, Siuslaw continue Volleyball INSIDE — SPORTS RECORDS Obituaries & emergency response logs Inside — A2 SIDE SHOW Activities and comics every Saturday Inside — B4 The Port of Siuslaw has had a busy summer —installing new camping sites, reinforcing a large segment of the grounds that meets the northern bank of the Siuslaw river, unexpect- edly hosting the city’s annual July fireworks presentation and prep- ping for a $150,000 upgrade to the walkway behind the Mo’s and ICM restaurants. These projects have all been handled while maintaining and running a mostly full camp- ground and marina. As the off-season approaches, the list of things to do during the lull remains lengthy. “We’ve had an excellent sum- mer,” said Port Manager Dave Huntington. “Fishing and weather has been very good, for the most part, and we’ve had a better than expected season. We have a lot of big projects going on this year which will start to get a lot more of our attention now that our busy season is finally winding down.” Huntington said his staff has been busy, but they have accom- plished everything asked of them and more. “Everyone here has worked very hard this year and taken on a lot of additional responsibilities with the number of projects we’re trying to complete. We have a very small staff, but they all care about what we’re trying to accomplish,” he said. “I can’t say enough about how ded- icated the staff are to this port and how much pride they take in their accomplishments and I feel very fortunate to have them.” The most noticeable of the con- tinuing efforts to improve the Port of Siuslaw property will be the up- grade and reinforcement of the pier and walkway that separates Mo’s and ICM from the river. Oregon Marine Construction has been awarded the contract for the repair and upgrade and project manager Brien Mill says the on-site work is about to begin. See PORT page 8A CLASSIFIEDS Listings and public notices Inside — B5 FOLLOW US FOR THE LATEST NEWS : /S IUSLAW N EWS @S IUSLAW N EWS T HE S IUSLAW N EWS . COM Voters can register, confirm registration Tuesday National Voter Registration Day event held at library on Sept. 24 By Mark Brennan Siuslaw News S IUSLAW N EWS 2 S ECTIONS | 20 P AGES C OPYRIGHT 2019 Perhaps the single most recog- nized and agreed upon right of an American citizen is the right to vote. This important link in the chain of democracy has been at the root of both triumph and tragedy since America’s inception in 1776. Originally, those who were awarded the honor to vote were limited. The inability of Americans that were not property owners and that were women or people of color to vote was eventually recognized as unjust and these inequities were changed. Those changes took de- cades, and many suffered to move the nation to enact those socially important changes. The idea that everyone is entitled to vote — and should be allowed to do so — is behind this Tuesday’s National Voter Registration Day. Locally, there will be a non-par- tisan group assembled at Siuslaw Public Library, 1460 Ninth St. in Florence, to inform and register in- terested residents from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Karin Radtke, one of the volun- teers for the event, said the goal of the day is to register voters of all
