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Spring Home Improvement Guide

Learn how to care for your home and garden More on this, page A14

SERVING CURRY COUNTY SINCE 1946 www.currypilot.com

Go play

FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 2023

Brookings, Oregon

South Coast tours offers unique outdoor experiences new season begins in April BREEANA LAUGHLIN Country Media, Inc.

gain a bit of self-confidence. So sharing and empowering people is meaningful for me.” The Port Orford resident started his business more than a decade ago after being in the cabinet and furniture making industry. He said he was inhaling too much sawdust wanted to spend more time outside. “I loved sharing this area with my friends who came to visit,” Lacey said. “One of my friends who came to visit a lot told me, ‘You should start up a guiding business here.’ So it was kind of like peer pressure,” he said with a laugh. Lacey operated South Coast Tours on his own for the initial couple years, and hired his first employee in 2014. Fast forward to 2022 – South Coast Tours employed eight guides. Marcus Mayorga is one of Lacey’s longtime employees. He said he’s developed into a sort of “wild card” guide. “I like a little variety bouncing around all summer. It’s awesome. One day I can be paddling the river doing whitewater and the next day I could be watching whales in Port Orford – and the next day I could be fishing down in Brookings. There is so much water here. It’s incredible,” Mayorga said. The guide hopes his guests feel more connected to nature and get inspired from the power of the ocean or river.

t’s Spring! Time to get outside and enjoy the beauty of our communities. South Coast Tours is gearing up for a new season of adventures. The outdoor tour company features a variety of water-based activities from whale watching to river and ocean kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding. The company has tours spanning the South Coast from Coos Bay and Bandon to Port Orford and Brookings. South Coast Tours also recently started offering a mountain bike, kayak combination. The “pedal and paddle” tour starts with a shuttle and 6.5 mile mostly downhill mountain bike ride near Agness and ends with a 5-mile white-water kayak paddle. “It’s really fun and a little bit rowdy but it’s not death-defying kind of paddling. You are going to get wet for sure,” said South Coast Tours owner Dave Lacey. Lacey said his favorite part about being a guide is “sharing this wonderful place with people.” “I also ﬁnd it satisfying to empower people to do something they didn’t think they could do,” he said. “We get a lot of people who say, ‘I didn’t think I could paddle on the ocean, and it wasn’t as hard as I thought.’ They

See PLAY, Page 10

Courtesy photo Kayaking tours are offered on the South Slough of Coos Bay, Bandon Coquille River, the Rogue River, the ocean at Port Orford and more.

Historic housing, homelessness legislation approved Package addresses housing supply and homelessness

Bills 2001 and 5019, have passed the Oregon Senate with bipartisan support, following passage in the Oregon House.

JEREMY C. RUARK Country Media, Inc.

What House Bill 2001 and House Bill 5019 will do:

Affordable Housing and Emergency Homelessness Response Package, House

• Fund the governor’s

homelessness state of emergency to allow for a statewide and coordinated response to homelessness ($130 million) • Extend homelessness support to rural and coastal Oregon ($27 million) • Provide support for homeless youth by connecting them with rental as-

sistance, shelter, culturally speciﬁc services and health care ($25 million) • Increase production of affordable modular housing in Oregon ($20 million) • Improve on-site workforce housing for farmworkers ($5 million) • Grant renters faced with eviction for non-pay-

ment more time to access rental assistance and other services • Make affordable housing production the state’s top planning priority and ensure the state will work with local partners to identify effective strategies and tools to increase production “The Senate and the en-

tire Legislature should be proud of what we achieved with this package,” Senate President Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego) said. “Faced with a statewide housing and homelessness crisis, we worked across the aisle and with our See HOUSING, Page 10

Council hears opposition, support for city manager shoplifting violation at the Fred Meyer store in Brookings, July 4, 2022. Shortly after the court proceedings in the case Howard was placed on administrative leave by the city council. She returned to her position In February following the city council’s approval. Former city council candidate Teresa Lawson, who garnered more than 1,000 votes in the last election cycle, addressed Mayor Ron Hedenskog and stated, “ …(with regard to Howard) your victory was not a mandate. What’s she (Howard) got on you (the City)?” Brookings resident Connie Hunter spoke in support of the city manager. “Janell Howard was part

The Brookings City Council is reviewing testimony about its decision to reinstate Janell Howard as the Brookings City Manager. In a standing-room only public city council meeting earlier this Janell Howard month, eight members of the audience shared their opinions about the council’s decision. Seven individuals spoke in opposition to the councilors’ retention of Howard, who pled no contest to a

INDEX

“

...(with regard to Howard) your victory was not a mandate. What's she got on you (the City)?

“

ROGER GITLIN Country Media, Inc.

Teresa Lawson, former Brookings City Council Candidate of a Curry County team including Mayor Hedenskog and former City Manager Gary Milliman who advocated for $27 million for 26 rural counties’ housing needs. While speaking as a private citizen, the current Vice Chair of the Curry County Housing Committee, Hunter excluded any comment on Howard’s theft court case decision, December 30 in Gold Beach.

Background

The duties of Brookings City Manager include directing the overall budgeting and ﬁnance functions of the city as well as overseeing ofﬁcial city records and elections. When Howard was hired by the City of Brookings in July, 2018, her starting wage was for the position of city manager was $125,000 annually. The employee contract with the

city also states that after 6 months of positive performance, her wage would increase by ﬁve percent. According to her employment contract, Howard could be removed by the city council at any time and without notice. But if she was terminated without cause she would be entitled to severance pay of equal to her total salary and beneﬁts for six months – with an additional month for each year she served as City Manager up to a maximum of twelve months. If the city manager was terminated with cause – which includes a conviction of a felony or misdemeanor – she would not be entitled to severance pay. According to court doc-

uments Howard v. the City of Coos Bay, Howard served as the finance director for the City of Coos Bay from 1998 to 2008. In September of 2008 after an investigation into whether Howard had shoplifted from Walmart (from which no charges were filed) she was terminated from her position. Howard maintained her firing was actually a result of a complaint she had brought in 2007 regarding an accountant the city had hired to conduct an audit, the court documents state. After filing suit against the city of Coos Bay, Howard was eventually awarded more than $200,000 in economic, non-economic and punitive damages.

Phone Number: 541-813-1717 • Address: 519 Chetco Ave, Ste 7, Brookings, 97415 • Email: Circulation@CountryMedia.net

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