Peace Harbor Breaks Ground on Emergency Expansion
A community drive to raise $5-million in donations and pledges to expand the 25-year old Emergency Department at Peace Harbor Medical Center finally reached its goal last week. Leaders of the “Leave a Legacy, Save a Life Campaign” announced the accomplishment at a formal ground breaking ceremony at the center Friday afternoon.
Actual construction will begin later this month, but preparations for the 47-hundred square foot addition to Peace Harbor are underway.
By the time the expansion is complete in September of 2016, it will have more than doubled the size of the existing E-R and provide additional capabilities.
The current emergency department has been operating over-capacity for several years. It was originally intended to handle about 5-thousand visits each year. It’s currently running at a 9-thousand visit pace. That’s meant an overflowing facility that forced caregivers to leave patients on beds in hallways at times when they’ve had too many.
The expansion will come in two phases… first will be the new addition. When that’s completed later this year, the emergency operations will move into it while the existing space is renovated. When work is done, there will be nine private treatment rooms with two additional triage spaces and a separate waiting room and entrance for the department.
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An 18-year old Veneta man who walked away from a Camp Florence work detail last week is still sought by the Oregon State Police and the Oregon Youth Authority. Joshua Ryan Ward is described as being six-feet; 173 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He had been in OYA custody for attempted sexual abuse and attempted robbery, offenses committed before he was 18. Ann Snyder with the authority said Ward may pose a danger to himself or others. If he is spotted she said you should not try to contact him, but call police. A photo of Ward can be seen on KCST-dot-com.
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State Treasurer Ted Wheeler says school districts and local governments will have to pay more for employee pensions because legislative leaders are blocking his effort to restructure the management of Oregon’s investments.
Wheeler has tried unsuccessfully for three years to convince lawmakers that his agency needs more independence from the legislature to hire staff and make decisions about investments.
He said Friday the current governance structure is too risky, and without more flexibility, investment managers will be forced to back away from Oregon’s heavy exposure to private equity investments. Such a move would lower long-term investment returns in Oregon’s pension fund… money that would have to be made up with higher contributions from taxpayers.
Senate President Peter Courtney says the Legislature has an important oversight responsibility.
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The Port of Siuslaw Commission trimmed planned expenditures in five different line items during a special meeting last week in order to balance their proposed budget for 2015-16. The cuts were required because the commission had rejected the budget committee recommendation to increase rates at the RV Park and Campground. The increased rates were called for in order to meet revenue requirements.
Instead, Commissioners agreed to cut the budget line items for legal expense and travel by $5-thousand each. $3-thousand had been budgeted for elections in the coming year, but that was deleted entirely because no elections are planned. One-thousand-dollars each will also be cut from the miscellaneous and advertising expenses. The revised budget will be the subject of a public hearing June 17th.
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