9 October 2015
Takes medical retirement after sudden illness
The Dunes City Council reviewed a separation package last night for the city’s administrator.
Fred Hilden took a sudden retirement due to health reasons late last month. He’s reportedly doing well, but has been hospitalized since mid September. He’s expected to be released this weekend.
Councilor Jaime Mills was named as the interim administrator. She resigned from her post on the council in order to take that position.
Mills had one year remaining on her current term. It’s unclear yet as to what steps the city council will take to fill the position.
It’s also unclear what the next step will be in filling the administrator’s position on a permanent basis. Mills said she’s not certain at this stage if she wants it permanently or not.
Re-broadcast of Our Town features former TV anchor
Society is failing to protect the victims of mass shootings according to a long-time TV journalist. Rick Dancer covered the 1998 Thurston High School shootings. He said the similarities between that and other mass shootings around the country; including last week’s tragedy at Umpqua Community College in which ten people died; are very real.
Rick Dancer – “We as a culture have a problem here. And they’re young men who are disenfranchised, unlinked to other people who have a certain form of mental illness or distractions; and we are not attacking the problem.”
The problems, Dancer says, cannot be fixed by gun control legislation or more government assistance for mental health. It must go deeper than that. The real solution, he says, is for society as a whole to step up and take action.
Dancer was on this month’s edition of Coast Radio’s Our Town. The program will re-air Sunday morning from ten AM to Noon on KCFM.
Public Power Month to feed the hungry
When Central Lincoln PUD employees were asked how they wanted to observe Public Power Month in October they responded by saying they wanted to help feed the hungry.
That’s why all this month, PUD customers are being encouraged to drop off non-perishable food donations at the Florence office of Central Lincoln. All of the donations will be divided between Florence and Mapleton Food Shares.
General Manager Debra Smith said unemployment tends to rise on the coast in the wintertime. She said assistance with food would “meet real needs”.
Central Lincoln is Oregon’s second-largest public power utility, covering some 700 square miles in Lincoln, Lane, Douglas and Coos Counties.
CPR Saves Lives
CPR classes are being credited with saving two lives last month in Florence. September 8th, Robert Ackerman had just returned from fishing on the Siuslaw River when he suffered a heart attack. Rick Neet, of Coburg, was camping in the Port of Siuslaw RV Park. He saw Ackerman go down and began administering CPR. A week later, a good friend and fishing companion of Neet’s: Ronald DeGroot; was just a few feet away from where Ackerman was revived.
Rick Neet – “Pulled his boat out to flush the motors and he had a cardiac arrest, fell out of his boat and a guy came out of the bathrooms and administered CPR.”
Neet, who was not present for the second “save” said someone else called 911; more volunteers jumped in to help out and DeGroot was saved.
Rick Neet – “It’s amazing, two things happen within a week and both of them are doing good.”
Ackerman and DeGroot both survived, says Western Lane Ambulance spokesman Al Kreitz (KRITES), because of CPR classes.
Florence Food Share expands availability
Recognizing that many of the people who rely on Florence Food Share to help fill their pantries are working more than one job, that organization is expanding their hours of availability.
Food Share will be open on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of each month, between ten AM and one PM.
Florence Food Share executive director Norma Barton said an anonymous donor is underwriting the Saturday hours; recognizing that working families may not be able to get to them during the week.
Barton says Saturday hours will begin next week, the 17th. Initially they will be open twice a month, but her aim is to expand that to weekly.
