Reedsport residents begin planning centennial

This coming year marks the centennial of Reedsport’s incorporation.

With this in mind, city leaders and volunteers are getting the engines ready for a big bash or series of parties to celebrate the lady that’s Reedsport.

Main Street Coordinator Emerson Hoagland discussed how best to commemorate the birthday with a group of roughly 20 residents March 7 at city hall.

“It looks like we’ve got a good turnout tonight,” said Hoagland.

He emphasized that his focus for the evening wasn’t to lecture to residents, but to get their thoughts on how to best showcase Reedsport.

“I was doing a little digging today,” he said, noting that settlers came to what’s now known as Gardiner, settling the town in 1852. Prior to white explorers and settlers coming through, the Kuitsh or Lower Umpqua tribe lived in the area.

Jumping ahead by 67 years, area residents voted June 19, 1919, as to whether to incorporate Reedsport “and it passed 151 to four.”

Why Reedsport?

Hoagland explained that the name came from Alfred Reed, who was a state legislator and area landowner. His nephew Warren Reed named the community after his uncle and “was the driver behind incorporation as well as the first mayor.”

By comparison, to this day Gardiner remains unincorporated but has its own fire department and sanitary district.

On Aug. 6, 1919, for the next door neighbor was when “the official seal and stamp and paperwork was filed.”

“I think the biggest not to miss is Aug. 6, because that was when everything was signed, sealed and delivered,” Hoagland stressed, adding that’s when all incorporation papers were filed with the state.

Participants spoke of the need to incorporate other events and anniversaries into next year’s bash — the Confluence, the chainsaw competition, when Lower Umpqua Hospital was built and the Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT group. Volunteers put together Confluence each winter with the aim of bringing in more tourists during the off season.

“I’m sure the schools would be involved,” said one audience member. Other ideas consisted of getting more research from the Oregon Historical Society and speaking to civic groups such as Rotary to do what is key — getting the word out.

Hoagland said Main Street volunteers and others could reach out to the Winchester Bay-Reedsport Chamber of Commerce. Audience members also wanted to invite local tribes to participate.

“We were thinking one of the most obvious things would be to have some street banners,” he said.

Councilor Rich Patten wondered ‘if there was still time to put a book together of families histories.

Mayor Linda McCollum said “one of the things that was mentioned as doing something every month.”

He added in an email that the “centennial planning has no specific budget at the moment. However we will be fundraising for it and have funds set aside for complementary projects. For example we have money set aside for street banners which may have a centennial theme.”

“We would like to maybe get a theme,” he said. “Plus we have the usual suspects. Do we want a parade or fireworks?”

That appealed to City Manager Jonathan Wright, who said “Oooh fireworks!”

As Hoagland put it, “so it’s kind of as big as we want to make it.”

Money will also come in from the Pub Crawl, which took place this weekend. This was specifically a fund-raiser for the centennial, as local Kathleen Miller emphasized.

Some communities’ volunteers get a time capsule together for a future generation and Hoagland said “of course that could be for the next 100 years or 25 or five months.”

Diane Novak, who operates the Umpqua Discovery Center, referred to a historical point when workers opened the Umpqua Bridge. She said the community could bring in drivers who own antique vehicles. The bridge dates to 1936.

Hoagland pointed out that volunteers already have put together a historic archive.

Originally Published in The Umpqua Post
350 Commercial Ave
Coos Bay, OR 97420
Phone: 541-269-1222

Nonprofit invites public to mingle, get updates and provide feedback

Nonprofit invites public to mingle
Guests of Revitalize Ontario’s October 2017 mixer sift through informational sheets that explain the nonprofit’s mission, as well as current and future projects. Unlike October, Wednesday’s mixer will have a presentation at 6 p.m. The change in format was a result of feedback from attendees in October.

ONTARIO — Revitalize Ontario will host a mixer on Wednesday to educate the public about future events the nonprofit organization will be hosting in 2018.

The organization was developed to promote a healthy and prosperous downtown through cultural and historic preservation, and plans to update community members from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Dinsmore Chiropractic, said Kayla Kirksey, economic development coordinator for the organization.

This is the second such mixer the organization has hosted – the first took place in October.

Unlike its mixer in October, which had handouts available with information on its projects, the mixer on Wednesday will have a presentation at 6 p.m. The event will also be a chance for community members to provide some feedback on how they feel Ontario is unique.

The change in the program’s format was a result of feedback from attendees of the October mixer, who said they’d prefer a presentation in future mixers, according to Kirksey.

The mixer comes as Revitalize Ontario is preparing for its March meeting, during which the organization will revise its goals for the year.

Originally Published in The Argus Observer
1160 SW 4th Street
Ontario, OR 97914

Phone: 541-889-3347

Talent to unveil electric car chargers

The city of Talent has jumped into the age of the electric car and will unveil two new chargers in front of its freshly solarized Community Center in an educational forum at 6 p.m. Thursday.

In a celebration and talk called “Electric Vehicles, the New Generation,” Rogue Climate Talent will host James Stevens, president of Southern Oregon Hybrid-Electric Vehicles Association, who will note the convenience of a local Level 2 charge, Talent’s first, with a caution that the technology is evolving fast and more juice may be needed.

“The city has a new, very green community center, very energy efficient, and it made sense to have EV chargers as part of the green theme,” said Cynthia Care of Rogue Climate Talent and Together For Talent. She is an organizer of the event. “I hope it will be a draw for Talent and that it will encourage people to eat in local restaurants and downtown amenities.”

“It’s cost-effective and good for a local, fast charge when you’re doing business in Talent, but I’m recommending they upgrade to Fast Charge (sometimes called Level 3),” Stevens said. “Level 2 is not going to give you a fast charge for a long range. Vehicles being sold now are long range. If you use Level 2 to charge a Tesla, it would take many hours. Fast charge would do it in 30 minutes.”

The two charging stations are free to users and economical to the city, costing $200 to $500 a month, depending on usage (amount corrected from previous version). They offer two- or four-hour charges. The city is studying costs and, depending on use, may charge for it at some point, said Connor Shields, city energy efficiency coordinator.

Level 2 charges max out at 7.7 kilowatts at any given moment, and that will service 26 EV models listed on manufacturer Clipper Creek’s specs, said Shields. The Tesla is above that range but could grab some charge, he adds.

“It doesn’t take long, looking at specs, to realize Level 3 is not needed for a lot of common cars like the Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus. Tesla is the most popular, but it’s also the most expensive. It’s an outlier.”

The event will feature local EV dealers, who will answer questions and show their wares, said Care. Forth Mobility, a nonprofit promoter of EV in Portland, will talk about the latest advances in electric transportation. Stevens will promote electric, hybrid and sustainably fueled vehicles, meaning those whose charge comes from solar, wind and other renewable energies.

“The event will be a mixer where people can approach EV owners, ask them how it is to drive one, and look the cars over,” said Sharon Anderson, a volunteer with Rogue Climate Talent and member of Together for Talent.

Stevens also is consulting with Rogue Valley Transportation District, evaluating EV buses for routes by the end of 2019, he said. Oregon, he added, has received $160 million from the federal government from a settlement of the VW emission fraud case, and he is consulting with Oregon Department of Transportation about where to use some of the money for Fast Charge stations in Southern Oregon.

Community organizers of the event and the charging station include many individual contributors and businesses, including Star Properties, Middleway Medicine and Sun Power. Blue Sky Energy is a major contributor to solar panels that power the EV chargers. The chief donor is True South, a solar installer in Ashland.

The event is at 104 E. Main St., Talent. Refreshments will be served.

Originally Published in Mail Tribune
P.O. Box 1108
Medford, OR 97501
Phone: 541-476-4500

RARE AmeriCorps Applications NOW AVAILABLE!

Are you interested in community building, natural resources, food security, natural hazard planning, economic development or land use planning?  Does your organization have community building, natural resources, food security, natural hazard planning, economic development or land use planning projects that you do not have resources to complete?  If so, you should consider applying to the Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) Program. Continue reading “RARE AmeriCorps Applications NOW AVAILABLE!”

LCRI hires new RARE worker from Madras

LCRI hires new RARE worker from Madras
New RARE worker Nick Johnson comes to Lakeview from Madras and hopes to learn as much as he can from Jim Walls during his time here. 

Lake County Resource Initiative (LCRI) has hired a new RARE (Resource Assistant for Rural Environments) worker.

Nick Johnson, takes over for Norah Owings who took over as the program manager for the Dallas Downtown Association in Dallas, Ore.

Johnson comes to Lakeview from Madras, where he worked as a quality engineer at a secondary wood facility before coming to Lakeview. He heard about the job from his brother Casey Johnson who works for the Oregon Department Fish of Wildlife.

“My brother worked with Jim Walls before on different projects, he told me about the job and I thought it would be right up my alley,” Johnson said.

Johnson graduated from Oregon State University in 2015 with a degree in renewable materials and a minor in business entrepreneurship.

In order to obtain his degree, Johnson had to take a wide variety of classes that will help in during his time at LCRI.

“My major was very widespread and focused on a variety of things including many different types of renewable energy systems,” Johnson said. “It also focused on things such as renewable material physics and techniques as well.”

Johnson went into the degree program, because he was sure there would be a lot of jobs within the renewable energy career field.

“As I got more into the program, I became very interested in the renewable energy side of things and started to focus on that,” Johnson said.

Johnson isn’t technically employed by LCRI, he is contracted through AmeriCorps, but even though he just started, he hopes that this will turn into a permanent job.

“While I’m here, I want to soak up as much information as I can from Jim Walls and everyone else that he works with,” Johnson said. “There are a lot of great things that we are working on, that I would love to see get implemented.”

One of those things that LCRI is working on is they submitted a grant through the USDA to work with local businesses in Lake, Klamath and Modoc counties to do an assessment on buildings and their energy usage over the last year to determine if they would be a good fit to have solar panels installed on their buildings.

Johnson said that the RARE program is an 11-month program that totals 1700 service hours.

“At the end of the program, you get nine credits that can be used towards a master’s program or a different bachelor’s degree,” Johnson said. “I’d like to get a master’s degree at some point in the renewable energy field, but I want to see where this job takes me first.”

Since Johnson started on Monday, Jan. 22, he hasn’t had a chance to check out Lakeview life, but sees a lot of similarities between Lakeview and his hometown of Madras. He loves the outdoors and spending as much time as he can in the outdoors.

For more information contact Johnson at 541-947-6314.

Originally Published in Lake County Examiner
739 N. 2nd St.
Lakeview, OR 97630

Phone: 541-947-3378

Canyon Conversations: Downtown Stayton has a ‘hearty’ February in store

With the passing of another yuletide and New Year, early 2018 sets in with a string of more moderately celebrated holidays as MLK Day, President’s Day and Valentines Day, each await us in the coming weeks and months.

Friends of Old Town Stayton plan to celebrate the latter occasion with a hearty adornment of street lamps.

Continue reading “Canyon Conversations: Downtown Stayton has a ‘hearty’ February in store”

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