Make the McKenzie Connection!
Make the McKenzie Connection!
Sorted by date Results 276 - 300 of 1743
COUGAR RESERVOIR: Crews that have been busy on a road connecting the public to popular recreation sites have hung up their tools for the season. Due to weather, according to the Willamette National Forest, construction work on Forest Service Road (FS) 19 was paused and the road is now open to through travel between the McKenzie River Valley to Westfir. This summer, contractors removed and upgraded 1,100 feet of guardrail, repaired approximately 35 road failures (road fill slopes and pothole...
Lane County has scheduled a meeting next month to share the latest draft concepts for a Blue River community plan. From 6 to 8 p.m. Planners will share initial drafts and begin collecting feedback from residents, according to Devon Ashbridge, the county’s public information officer. The in-person meeting will be held in the McKenzie High School’s New Gym, 51187 Blue River Drive. “We have been working with community stakeholders and state partners for several months to gather information and ideas to guide the creation of the draft conce...
East Lane County Commissioner Heather Buch, Orchid Health CEO Orion Falvey, McKenzie Valley Wellness president Val Rapp, and architect Curt Wilson all dug in to kick off reconstruction of the new 3,200 square-foot medical clinic in Blue River. Besides patient exam rooms and office areas, the clinic would be configured so that a portion could be used as a community or multi-purpose room after normal day-to-day hours of operation next to the new Blue River Fire Station, already under...
People on a guided tour celebrating progress in rebuilding after the Holiday Farm Fire found a lot of positive energy in the air last week. Among the tour stops was the Little Eagles Childcare Center now open at the McKenzie River Community School campus. Highlights of the 2023 Tour included an opportunity to look at design drawings for the new O’Brien Memorial Library - where groundbreaking will occur on October 27th. Just a short walk from there crews were busy drying in the walls and roof o...
Finn Rock Landing, off Quartz Creek Road, will be closed from October 23, 2023 until Spring 2024 for renovations. Improvements to the site will include a better road base, safer traffic flow, and the installation of new parking stalls, ADA-accessible walkways, fencing, bird-friendly lighting, picnic tables, and garbage receptacles. The site, which attracts as many as 400 people a day in the summer, is owned and managed by The McKenzie River Trust (MRT). MRT’s Executive Director, Joe Moll, s...
Lightning strikes in a dry forest and starts a wildfire. It’s a hot, windy day, and the embers quickly spread. Smoke rises, and it’s detected, sometimes by satellites, lookouts or people who call 911. Reports bombard an interagency dispatch center: There’s a new start, and it needs firefighting resources, fast. The wildland fire dispatchers who respond are a critical link in the fast-moving series of decisions needed to begin battling a blaze. When a fire sparks, they’re the ones respons...
On behalf of the Mc-Kenzie Locals Helping Locals (LHL), I would like to thank and recognize all the organizations and folks that made this past Sunday’s McKenzie Community Celebration, held and organized by LHL, another outstanding success. First and foremost, thanks to McKenzie Community Track and Field for, as always, providing the beautiful and fantastic venue, the Aaron and Marie Jones Community Track, for this year’s festivities. What a treasure and asset this venue is to our Com...
BLUE RIVER: Only 30% of area homes have been rebuilt three years after the Holiday Farm Fire scorched 173,000 acres and destroyed over 500 residences. In a step to reverse that trend, the McKenzie Community Land Trust (MCLT) has acquired 2 acres to build 6 affordable homes in Blue River. “The Rose Street Cottages will help address a long-standing community need for affordable housing,” according to Lane Tompkins, McKenzie School Superintendent and chairman of the MCLT board. The project, he say...
Vida area residents have been busy in recent weeks removing graffiti, including the recurring anti-law enforcement “ACAB” code painted on safety barriers near the Goodpasture covered bridge. Other tags have been painted under the historic structure....
OAKRIDGE: A male suspect believed to be connected to multiple violations in the McKenzie Valley was arrested last week by Oakridge police. Investigators believe Schylar Dominicq Flick, 29, was involved in car break-ins last Wednesday at the Ben and Kay Dorris Boat Landing as well as the theft of one of the vehicles. Flick was booked into the Lane County Jail without bail on 19 charges on September 28th. Among them were four counts of Unlawful Entry of a Motor Vehicle, 1st and 2nd Degree Theft,...
WALTERVILLE; Shortly after 7 p.m. last Tuesday residents of Page Lane and Walterville Loop ran frantically to the bridge over the EWEB power canal after a car ran off the road and took out a power line. Neighbors quickly gathered to pull a young woman from her vehicle that had plummeted into the canal. Emergency personnel also responded within 5 minutes. Upon arrival, crews from McKenzie Fire & Rescue reported they found that the driver was able to exit the vehicle safely, however, it was fully...
The McKenzie Valley Long-Term Recovery Group has received funding from Lane County to help pay for - or reimburse eligible property owners - whose primary residence was damaged or destroyed by the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire. The program can cover up to $5,000.00 for the survey of the lot linked with the primary dwelling. In addition, the program also includes costs for the discovery and/or replacement of the property pins and marking the ordinary high water mark. Property owners are responsible for...
Oregon will receive $157 million from the federal government to help connect about 17,000 homes and businesses to the internet, the White House announced Wednesday. The money, which comes from the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package passed by Congress in 2021, follows an earlier allocation of $688 million for broadband in Oregon through the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law, also passed in 2021. “Between those two programs, I would expect that we’re going to get all Oregonians that are cur...
Jeff and Jo Ann Calavan of Vida, founders of the Oregon Flute Store, sold their over 27-year-old Vida business. They are retiring after nearly three decades of building a vibrant flute community and serving Native American flute enthusiasts. Their store was known for offering popular flutes, protective flute cases that they designed and made, songbooks that they published, and other merchandise. Jonny and Maria Lipford of Cedar Rapids, esteemed figures in the flute community, have announced thei...
FINN ROCK: Transportation issues and how they impact education were at the core of public testimony at last Wednesday’s meeting of the McKenzie School Board. Six employees and community members all said they fear the end of an era may be in the offing if a decision is made to charter outside services. In a May 2022 posting the district was offering a $1,200 sign-on hiring bonus for new bus drivers who could earn up to $21 per hour driving daily morning and after school routes. The ad went on t...
A project to create “transitional shelters” for people facing tough times is showing signs of success. That assessment was shared last week by students during a celebration at the Everyone Village in Eugene, where people are moving into some of the tiny homes that were constructed at 16 schools around Lane County. “We got a chance to come out and see everything and what we were directly impacting,” explained Jamie Leclair, a junior at McKenzie High. “I think that made us a lot more motivated...
The McKenzie River Valley — the collective name given to Lane County’s nine unincorporated communities known as Cedar Flat, Camp Creek, Walterville, Leaburg, Vida, Nimrod, Finn Rock, Blue River, and McKenzie Bridge — is known for its small-town charm, beautiful outdoors and, currently, scorching wildfires. But the area also has a dark underbelly. Numerous people have gone missing in the area recently, and the bodies of two of those people have been recovered in just the past few months, leadi...
BLUE RIVER: Lane County Public Works is asking people to weigh in on the latest designs for Blue River Drive. Details of the proposals include a multi-use path for walking and biking for the section of roadway west of downtown. In the business district, plans show sidewalks and parallel parking on both sides of the street for two blocks,along with a “parking pocket” closer to the bridge that crosses Blue River. In previous proposals, the county asked people to comment on things they both fav...
FINN ROCK: Chinook salmon making their way back up the McKenzie River have found more places to lay their eggs thanks to years of work restoring floodplains throughout the watershed. This year, the McKenzie River Trust, U.S. Forest Service, EWEB, and the McKenzie Watershed Council finished their latest project at Finn Rock Reach, transforming the forest and helping it to become part of the river again. “The goal is to give the river as much space as we can,” Project Manager John Trimble exp...
Fire managers reported this week that both the Horse Creek and Pothole Fires have been 100% contained. Crews on those fires wil now ocus on repairing roads and natural resources in both areas....
BLUE RIVER: Lane County reported this week that the site evaluation process for a community onsite wastewater system has been completed on the Blue River Park and the Old Mill property (Three Sisters) sites. It determined that the proposed 35,000-gallon-per-day (GPD) community wastewater system would pollute both the Blue River and McKenzie River at levels that are unacceptable to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The report, however, didn’t completely eliminate the possibility of a community wastewater system in Blue R...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Portland District is assessing whether it should continue to produce hydroelectric power at its Willamette Valley project dams. In total, nine of those 13 federally-owned dams are capable of producing upwards of 500 megawatts of power - enough to power about 300,000 homes, the Corps said. However, in August 2019 (an average water year) the energy output was in the 184.4 MW range. “Right now, a team of experts is diving deep into data and studies about the dams to provide initial information for a report to C...
VIDA: People turned out on Saturday to sample this year’s harvest at a wine and honey-tasting event sponsored by the Vida McKenzie Community Center (VMCC). A local winemaker, McKenzie Crest Wines, and the Honey Paddle Farm offered people samplings of wine and honey, in addition to a bouquet bar where they could build their own mason jar flower arrangement. For many folks, the event offered first views of the newly constructed Community Center building which offered views of the river from the p...
MCKENZIE BRIDGE: Last Thursday varied from the Upper McKenzie RFPD’s regularly scheduled drill night. Instead, they opted to celebrate the department’s Wins since the night of the Holiday Farm Fire. “On the night of 9/7/2020, almost all of the volunteers currently on our roster were either fighting or fleeing (or both) the Holiday Farm Fire,” according to Upper McKenzie Fire Chief Rainbow Plews. During the “last two anniversaries, we have spent time focusing on the trauma, sorrow, grief, fe...
