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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 2019)
SN Siuslaw News TH THESIUSLAWNEWS.COM SATURDAY EDITION | OCTOBER 12, 2019 | $1.00 Attention Medicare Recipients: Consult YOUR Local Expert! 2020 Annual Enrollment is between: Oct 15 th - Dec 7 th You may be eligible for both lower rates and extra benefits; (hearing, dental and vision). Our FREE, 40 minute, educational workshops will help you discover options for which you qualify. Tues. October 15 th Either 11am or 3pm; AT “The Mustard Seed” 509 Kingwood St. Florence, OR. For more info Call (541) 977-6199 Postal Customer Florence, Ore. 97439 VOL. 129, NO. 82 NEWS & VIEWS THAT DEFINE OUR COMMUNITY F LORENCE , O REGON Protected cobra lily thrives at Wayside WEATHER Cloudy with a high of 64 and a low tonight of 48. Full forecast on A3 COMMUNITY Siuslaw shows pride at school reunion INSIDE — A3 SPORTS Sailors keep positive INSIDE — SPORTS Story & Photo By Mark Brennan Siuslaw News T he Florence Garden Club’s October meeting focused attention on an extreme- ly rare plant found in few places in the world. Among them is the Darlingtonia Wayside Botanical Garden, an Oregon State Park. The 18-acre park is located on Mercer Lake Road, just off High- way 101, and is the only state park dedicated to the preservation of one plant species, Darlingtonia Californica, also known as the cobra lily. The common name was coined because of the similarities be- tween the tongue of the cobra, which resembles the long red ten- drils on the exterior of the plant, and the hooded flower at the top of the plant, which gives the impression of a snake rearing to strike. Darlingtonia has a number of unique qualities but most inter- estingly might be its diet, which is carnivorous. Obituaries & emergency response logs Inside — A2 SIDE SHOW Activities and comics every Saturday Inside — B4 CLASSIFIEDS Listings and public notices Inside — B5 Garden Club visits area’s rare carnivorous plant Oregon Parks Department Park Ranger Katie Pollut is stationed at Honeyman State Park and is very familiar with the plant. She shared some of her enthusiasm about the unusual plant with lo- cal gardeners on Wednesday. Pollut gave an informative and fact-filled presentation to the 40 or so gardeners in attendance, which touched on the habitat preferred by one of the rarest and most visually striking members of the pitcher family. “This is the only member of this plant family that exists west of the Rockies and this is the only place in the entire world that Darling- tonia grows in the wild,” Pollut said. “It is kind of a picky plant, as far as where it will grow. It doesn’t really care about altitude. We have it right here in Florence, at sea level, and it will grow all the way up to 8,500 feet elevation. Really what it cares about is the soil and water conditions, so you are most likely to find Darlingto- nia in a bog or marshy meadow.” This description of the pre- ferred habitat for the cobra lily is apt as its local home has a wood- en walkway that allows visitors to view thousands of the unique plants from above the soggy ground where they live. Darlingtonia doesn’t just re- quire plenty of water; it also needs the water to be moving, primarily to cool the plant’s root structure. There is also concern among bot- anists that minor variations in the climate will negatively impact the special plants. “They like someplace that is very wet, but it can’t be just any wet place, it requires a little flow- ing water,” Pollut said. “It is also incredibly temperature sensitive. If the roots get over about 10 de- grees Celsius (50 degrees Fahren- heit), the plant gets stressed out and it can die from overheating. See DARLINGTONIA page 8A Oh, deer! Dunes City considers working with ODFW to cull deer population By Jared Anderson Siuslaw News The possibility of an overabun- dance of deer was discussed at the Dunes City Council meeting Wednesday night, with the question of declaring the animals a public nuisance being put before the coun- cil. While the council did not make a final decision on the matter, the discussion brought up the possibility of allowing the state to intervene and cull Dunes City deer. Also discussed in the meeting were issues with unpermitted construc- tion sites, and the annual water meter reading being conducted by the city. Dunes City’s problems with a growing deer population have been long standing, with multiple com- plaints from residents throughout the years. Earlier this year, the coun- cil passed an ordinance that made feeding wild animals illegal in hopes to discourage the population, but for one local resident, the deer didn’t seem to take the hint. “There’s a male deer that seems to have a thing for her,” Dune city Administrator Jamie Mills told the council. “She has a brand-new wrought iron fence, and this male deer squeezed through it, bent the bars out, and parked himself on the front porch. She has to step over him to get to work in the morning.” See DUNES CITY page 9A Siuslaw School Florence Public Works Board updates holds open house of the groups that is part of the day’s emphasis policies, hears O ne perhaps most respon- was to show the important sible for keeping Florence work done by the 20 full- about programs “A City in Motion” is the time employees that make By Jared Anderson Siuslaw News RECORDS S PECIAL S ECTION I NSIDE Siuslaw School District discussed a variety of issues during its October meeting last Wednesday, including the passage of goals for the board, the district’s resource officer, signing up for the PTA and how the public should address complaints to the board itself. The meeting began with two ele- mentary students leading the pledge of allegiance. “This is CJ Craig and Noah Craig,” Siuslaw Elementary School Principal Michael Harklerode said, introducing the brothers who just transferred to the school this year. “Every month in See SCHOOL page 10A Public Works Department, which is “dedicated to pro- fessionally maintaining and improving the current in- frastructure of water, sewer, storm, street, airport and park services, to the highest possible standards for our community,” according to the department’s mission. On Thursday, Florence Public Works held the sec- ond annual Public Works Day, a free event designed to inform and educate the public. According to Megan Messmer, Public Informa- tion Officer for Florence, up the team that keeps the city operationally sound. “Members of the com- munity were invited to the Public Works Oper- ations Facility on King- wood Street to meet the crew and see what they do on a daily basis to keep the city operations run- ning,” Messmer said. “The city also created a video with the Public Works crew that showed some of their operations out in the field and at the vari- ous facilities. Prior to the community open house, See WORKS page 12A St0ry & Photos By Mark Brennan Siuslaw News FOLLOW US FOR THE LATEST NEWS : /S IUSLAW N EWS Vision looks at impact of education in the Siuslaw @S IUSLAW N EWS 2019 qualitative report looks at lifelong learning opportunities, challenges T HE S IUSLAW N EWS . COM S IUSLAW N EWS 2 S ECTIONS | 20 P AGES C OPYRIGHT 2019 Siuslaw Vision, with its focus on active, connected, creative, edu- cated, happy and working people, By Chantelle Meyer has now started Siuslaw News to look at the impact these areas have on the day to day lives of the 18,000 people living in the Siuslaw region of Florence, Mapleton, Dunes City, Swisshome, Deadwood and unincorporated ar- eas. “After a couple years, the Vision was interested in seeing what im- pact its work was having,” said Vi- sion Team member Londi Tomaro in a presentation last month. “The team had certain ideas about what their work was doing, but wanted to see if that was actually happen- ing.” Specifically, the Vision Team se- lected “Educated People,” with an emphasis on lifelong learning, as the topic for evaluation. According to Siuslaw Vision Co- ordinator Stephanie Sarles, “We discovered that learning is very personal and people are looking for it to apply to exactly what they want to learn in their lives. It’s ev- erything from watching a YouTube video on how to change a tire to sitting in a college class. People are learning in a lot of different ways, too, and some people prefer just learning on their own at home, checking a book out from the li- brary or researching on the in- ternet, while others really like the social aspect of it. It can be very broad.” See IMPACT page 8A
