Make the McKenzie Connection!
Make the McKenzie Connection!
Sorted by date Results 526 - 550 of 1812
Oregon is on track to spend $200 million to help homeless residents move into houses, give people who have fallen behind on rent more time to pay, and create new goals for cities to build homes under a pair of measures approved Wednesday by the state House. House Bill 2001 and House Bill 5019 passed on 50-9 and 49-10 votes, respectively, with only Republicans opposed. The bills now head to the Senate, where a vote is expected early next week. If they pass, as predicted, Gov. Tina Kotek is...
BLUE RIVER: McKenzie Community Land Trust (MCLT) and DevNW were recently awarded $800,000 from the Lane County Board of Commissioners to support the development of a 6-unit affordable homeownership project. For the project, MCLT contracted with the Springfield-based non-profit, Dev-NW to act as the developer. “DevNW has a proven track record of developing high quality, affordable homes in Lane County and throughout Oregon,” according to Lane Tompkins, president of MCLT. He said the group was...
BLUE RIVER: Contractors, architects, and Upper McKenzie Rural Fire Protection District personnel all stood in the cold mud of a vacant lot on March 6th. They were there to discuss when hammers would actually start to swing in the rebuild of a fire station for Blue River. After more than three years of effort, excavation is planned to get underway within a few weeks. Plans call for the new fire station to be up and ready by November. Back in September of 2021, the 51742 Dexter Street lot was...
Local nonprofit McKenzie Valley Wellness is encouraging people to join if they haven’t already. Anyone over 18 can for only $10 a year. Everyone who is a member by April 1st will be able to vote in the upcoming election of board directors at the annual membership meeting set for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 2nd, at the Upper McKenzie Community Center. Existing members don’t need to do anything right now. MVW president Val Rapp says, “We had lots of new members join last summer, and they are all still...
Oregon State University research into the ability of a wildfire to improve the health of a forest uncovered a Goldilocks effect – unless a blaze falls in a narrow severity range, neither too hot nor too cold, it isn’t very good at helping forest landscapes return to their historical, more fire-tolerant conditions. The study led by Skye Greenler, a graduate research fellow in the OSU College of Forestry, and Chris Dunn, an assistant professor in the college, has important implications for lan...
EUGENE: Some of the $150 million in funding set aside by the Oregon legislature in 2021 will be coming to Blue River, thanks to a vote last month by the Lane County Board of Commissioners. In accepting a $4,120,547.41 grant from Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS), the board plans to assign the money for home purchases; supplies for volunteer-built housing construction; infrastructure; and staffing for recovery operations. In his report to the board Long-term Disaster Recovery Manager...
The Lane County Sheriff’s Office is seeking help in identifying individuals associated with a suspect vehicle that may have been involved in recent thefts occurring in the Vida and Leaburg areas. Someone also mentioned they mail have seen the car in the Mohawk area when mailboxes were being gone through. Investigators believe the vehicle pictured above is a mid-2000’s Suzuki Aerio or a similar car. An unidentified suspect wearing a hooded sweatshirt and pants could also be involved. Anyone wit...
Water vapor is continuing to condense around specks of dust to form ice crystals. The resulting falling flakes have built up snow levels to their best levels so far this winter. And, snow at higher elevations is expected to continue this week. That solid base, with several inches of fresh powder on top, can hide hazards like hidden stumps, rocks, posts, and fences so officials are advising people to be on the alert. Up around the Santiam Pass this week, depths ranged from 74 to 78 inches at...
A new bill facing the Oregon Legislature this session would lower the voting age for school board elections. Other bills this session aim to lower the state’s voting age in various capacities, including House Joint Resolution 20, which proposes an amendment to the Oregon constitution to lower the state’s voting age from 18 to 16. House Bill 3206 focuses on allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to cast ballots in school district elections. If passed, this could bring in an estimated 100,000 new voters st...
Technology helped searchers find a motorist stranded in the snow after the vehicle became stuck in an area where cell service wouldn’t connect. Making his situation worse, the Lane County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue reports his family was out of the country and nobody knew where he had gone or to call for help if he didn’t make it home. Once stranded he made several smart decisions. First, he stayed with his vehicle. Second, he used some ingenuity to find a way to call for help. The m...
Salmon and steelhead will be better treated according to changes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is recommending for the 500 trillion gallons of water stored in 13 dams and reservoirs it manages in the Willamette Basin. Flood control will remain a priority but endangered fish will move up a list of considerations that includes drinking water, irrigation, and recreation opportunities. The agency's recently released 2,200-page draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) includes...
People who live outside the Eugene-Springfield area are being asked to take a short online survey to help update Lane County’s Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan. Lane County’s Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan is updated every five years and aims to reduce long-term risk from natural hazards around the region. I Officials say updating this plan also makes Lane County and area cities eligible for federal grants and funding to help mitigate potential impacts from disasters like conducting fuel reduction projects to reduce risks from wildfires. “La...
The US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region has entered into an agreement for almost $100,000 with Sustainable Northwest to enhance collaborative capacity for forest restoration during the 2023 calendar year. The partnership aims to train Forest Service interdisciplinary teams on working with collaborative groups, provide technical assistance to collaboratives, and share best practices through peer-to-peer collaborative learning networks. The funding for this agreement was made possible...
COUGAR RESERVOIR: A 22-year-old Salem man suffered fatal injuries on February 18th. According to the Lane County Sheriff’s Office, a report was received at approximately 4:22 p.m. that a man had fallen off a cliff located on the east side of Aufderheide Drive (USFS Rd. 19), a short distance south of Terwilliger Hot Springs. First responders arrived on the scene and were able to see a man lying motionless on the ground at the bottom of a cliff, but due to the extreme terrain, the rescuers were n...
The Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) has secured over $3 million to help McKenzie Valley homeowners repair or replace septic systems damaged in the Holiday Farm Fire. People who qualify can receive up to $35,000, depending on their type of septic system and household income. Utility officials say improperly maintained septic systems threaten the McKenzie River – the sole source of drinking water for nearly 200,000 people EWEB serves in the Eugene area. It’s feared leaking systems could contaminate the water source with unsafe bacteria, prov...
On Saturday 02/18/2023 at approximately 4:22 pm, the Lane County Sheriff’s Office received a report that a man had fallen off a cliff located between Aufderheide Drive (USFS Rd. 19) and Cougar Reservoir, near the Terwilliger Hot Springs. First responders arrived and were able to see the man lying motionless on the ground at the bottom of a cliff, but due to the extreme terrain, the rescuers were not able to immediately reach him. Lane County Sheriff Search and Rescue personnel had also been en route and upon arrival used ropes to rappel down t...
Widespread tree scorch in the Pacific Northwest that became visible shortly after multiple days of record-setting, triple-digit temperatures in June 2021 was more attributable to heat than to drought conditions, Oregon State University researchers say. In a paper published in Tree Physiology, a team led by Christopher Still of the OSU College of Forestry cites evidence that leaf discoloration and damage are consistent with direct exposure to solar radiation during the hottest afternoons of the...
Oregon legislators are working on plans to provide more time before evictions, more money for factory-built homes, and new revolving loans to encourage building houses for middle-income families. Lawmakers including state Rep. Maxine Dexter, a Portland Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness, are aiming to pass a set of new housing policies and well over $100 million in new state spending within the next month. An omnibus bill the House committee discussed Tuesday is...
EUGENE: The Lane County Planning Commission’s February 7th meeting had special significance for folks hoping to rebuild fire-destroyed buildings along parts of Blue River Drive. Discussions included proposed amendments to the Lane Code that focused on the downtown area, east of the Blue River Bridge, and would also allow the creation of special right-of-way setbacks that could benefit other areas of the county. A section of Blue River Drive is among 30 others scattered around the county that a...
EUGENE: At their February 7th meeting, the Lane Board of County Commissioners (BCC) voted unanimously to place the renewing the current public safety levy before voters during the May 16th election. Passage of the measure, officials say, would not increase the tax rate. If approved, the measure would maintain a minimum of 255 local jail beds to hold people arrested for violent felonies or Measure 11 offenses until their cases are resolved - instead of releasing them due to lack of space. Since the original levy took effect in 2013, no violent...
Imagine community projects that can be turned around quickly. Sounds unlikely? A program that does just that is now open for applications. Started in 2017, the AARP Community Challenge program provides grants to improve cities and towns for people of all ages. The city of Tigard is one recent recipient. The program helped fund what's called a Launch Pod food business accelerator. Lloyd Purdy, economic development manager for the City of Tigard, said two food cart businesses have been selected...
K-9 Scout, along with his handler, Trooper Shae Ross will be following in the footsteps of the first anti-poaching team in Oregon - made up of K-9 Buck and Senior Trooper Josh Wolcott. That news was part of a joint press conference last month, where the OSP Fish & Wildlife Division, the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW) Stop Poaching Campaign, and the Oregon Wildlife Foundation (OWF) announced the expansion of the OSP Fish & Wildlife Conservation K-9 team. “Adding another wildlife d...
LEABURG: All the seats were full when the Oregon Department of Transportation hosted a safety study meeting on February 4th. Lacy Brown, an ODOT transportation engineer specializing in safety told the group ODOT would study data to understand crash patterns and combine that with community input to come up with recommendations for about 56 miles of Hwy. 126 between the metro boundaries and the junction with U.S. 20. Some of that community input had already been gathered from over 100 people who...
VIDA: The Oregon Dept. of Transportation's “Greenwood Dr - Vida” project is scheduled to go out to bidders on February 16th. Officials say the pavement resurfacing project is designed to replace deteriorating roadway surface that has come to the end of its useful life. Details will also include upgrades to the deck membranes on four bridges within the project limits. “This is an important statewide route and the pavement in this section is quickly getting worse,” according to an ODOT press r...
Fishery managers are predicting more spring Chinook salmon will be returning to the region this year, although only 10 percent are likely to be wild fish. According to a recent report, Oregon’s and Washington’s when native returns in 2022 amounted to 15.5 percent. Historically, wild spring Chinook spawned in nearly all the eastside Willamette tributaries above Willamette Falls. During 1952–1968, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) dam-building projects blocked more than 400 miles of wild...
