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Florence, Oregon Siuslaw News Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Number 1 • 134 years

How Siuslaw Lighthouse hosts many for holidays Valley Charter School, WCA came to be SIUSLAW NEWS FILES

Visitors to the Heceta Head Lighthouse had a lot to enjoy during the 28th Annual Victorian Christmas Open House. The Light keepers House could easily be seen from Highway 101, with holiday lights adorning the entire house and surrounding picket fence. Inside, they found a warm and welcoming atmosphere, food and refreshments, caroling, knowledgeable docents and even got a photo with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Tony Reed photo

Looking forward by looking back COMPILED by TONY REED Associate Editor

For many Florence Community members, 2024 made strides toward a goal and for others, the realization of it.While many some made strides toward a goal in 2024, others realized their goals or moved on to new ones. The same was true in the City of Florence. Often, large projects designed to improve the quality of life take more than a year to go through the public process, meetings, bidding and contracting.

Housing, homelessness and other quality of life issues took up a lot of City time this year and resulted in new ordinances about temporary sheltering, emergency shelters and enforcement. Investments were also made in the city and its safety, such as a new fire engine and dedicating funds toward keeping a section of the Siuslaw River bank from eroding into the river at great risk to neighboring properties. Taking a look back at 2024 See REVIEW, Page A3

Christmas storm brings down trees SIUSLAW NEWS STAFF

A windstorm that swept through western Lane County Christmas night kept Central Lincoln Public Utility District personnel busy into the following day as they made repairs removed downed trees and repaired lines to fix power outages. FIre personnel were also kept busy through the night as the wind pushed trees over and set off fire alarms. Just before midnight, a caller in the 1900 block of 17th Street reported that a tree had fallen into power lines and was on fire. Western Lane Fire and EMS Authority personnel responded. WLFEA Division Chief Rob Chance said that while the fire was in no danger of spreading, it put on quite a show. See STORM, Page A3

INSIDE

Obituaries — A2 Sports & Lifestyle — B1

Opinion — A3 Classifieds — B6-7

Fire personnel responded to this tree into power lines in the area of Mercer Creek Drive and Sutton Lake Road. Photo provided by WLFEA

The Siuslaw Valley Charter School (SVCS) Board of directors has been meeting regularly to discuss the implementation of policies but the process to reach this point has been ongoing since before 2024. Creation and approval of the new school has taken many meetings and generated many column inches of copy in this paper. Now that its board is eyeing a fall opening, it’s interesting to note how it came together. In late 2023, SVCS asked the Siuslaw School District to approve its proposed charter school, Whitmore Classical Academy (WCA), along with its classical learning model. In October, 2023, the board approved the SVCS application. In what would become a lingering topic of Siuslaw School Board discussions in 2024, School District attorney Rich Cohn Lee sent a January letter to Siuslaw Valley Charter School, asking that it disavow, for the record, any affiliation with Hillsdale College, a known conservative, private Christian institution in Michigan. In January 2024, Lee warned the District Board of Directors that approving a charter with affiliations to a known religious and political institution could have severe legal consequences. “My understanding was that there were some concerns raised, pursuant to ORS338, which essentially bars a public school district which receives public dollars, from establishing or approving the charter that affiliates with a religious, sectarian or political organization.” Cohn Lee said the application noted an affiliation with Hillsdale College which they agreed to remove. However, he said the applicant’s website still noted the affiliation at the time. He also alleged SVCS had said no special needs students would attend the school. The letter kicked off extensive discussion, public comment and responses from SVCS staff. For SVCS, Aric Sneddon said that Cohn Lee provided misinformation, asserting that the charter had not removed special education from its curriculum, and that it was not a religious or political organization. “The curriculum hasn’t changed from the last time we spoke. He also spoke about it See SCHOOL, Page A7