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TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2025

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‘Hands Off’ protests occur throughout the county, and the country BY NATE SCHWARTZ Editor

Over 1,300 protests took place throughout the country on April 5th, 2025 as hundreds of thousands of impassioned citizens voiced their concerns over the current administration, including multiple protests throughout Coos County. The resounding message? Keep billionaires out of politics and away from public programs and services. Protests were organized by groups like the 50501 movement, Indivisible, and countless other civil, veteran’s, women’s, and labor rights organizations concerned with the recent attacks on private information See PROTEST Continued on Page 3

City of Coquille attempts to address $10 million budget crisis caused by accounting mistake City only received their audits for FY 2022-2023 in July of 2024. Due to this error standing for multiple ﬁscal years, the effects compounded. What started as a $2 million mistake rolled into the next year creating a $5 million mistake, and culminated in a $10 million shortfall for FY 20242025. $10 million accounts for nearly one-third of the City’s entire yearly budget. In order to address this shortfall, it was necessary for the city to rebalance its books and therefore introduce a supplemental budget (an updated version of the current budget), in January of 2025. The City has made it clear that the shortfall is not missing cash, but rather an over projection in the budget and therefore an overspend based on current revenue. “That’s not cash missing,

BY NATE SCHWARTZ Editor

The City of Coquille’s Finance Staff was tasked with discovering the root of a $10 million budget shortfall. This was first noticed in October of 2024 during expenditures on the Firehall and Library construction projects, when the City’s Local Government Investment Pool was creating a drawdown of its cash reserves. The finance department discovered that back in the Fiscal Year 22-23, an error occurred in the City’s budgeting process making the City think it had roughly $2 million more to work with than it actually had. Finance staff noticed the discrepancy in the ending numbers of FY 20212022 not matching the starting numbers of FY 2022-2023. The City, which has been behind on its yearly audits due to staffing issues, did not catch the accounting error in time. The

See BUDGET CRISIS Continued on Page 10

Plane careens off runway at Southwest Oregon Regional Airport, only minor injuries reported BY NATE SCHWARTZ Editor

Early in the morning on April 7th, a small private jet flying in from St. George, Utah came in hot on Southwest Oregon Regional Airport’s (OTH) Runway 05/23. Its speed and a tailwind are thought to have contributed to the plane skidding off the east end of the tarmac and into Coos Bay near the swing span bridge. “We we’re able to confirm that we had operational crews that were on duty doing an inspection at the airport, so we were on scene pretty rapidly,” said Stephanie Kilmer, the Coos County Airport District’s Public Information Officer. “We are pretty certain that it was not weather related, however that will come out in the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation.”

The North Bend Fire Department was alerted to the crash via automated crash notifications. The airport’s Aircraft Recue and Firefighting crew (ARFF) were first on the scene, alongside North Bend Fire and PD, Coos Bay Fire and PD, County Sheriffs, and the Coast Guard to rescue the pilot and four passengers aboard the jet. The vessel was lifted out of the bay and onto a barge via crane, and containment of any hazardous materials began thanks to the Coos Bay Hazmat team. Despite the scary scene, no fatalities or major injuries have been reported. According to a release from Bay Area Hospital (BAH) two ambulances collected the 5 individuals that were on board and transported them for treatment of what are reported to be minor injuries. Two of those injured were discharged

the morning of the crash, with one being admitted at BAH and another being transported out of the area for treatment. At the time of writing, one passenger is still being evaluated. “The pilot was able to steer clear of a navigational aide that assists air traffic,” said Kilmer. “It is a critical piece of infrastructure here on that runway, so he did take evasive measures to miss that piece of equipment. The incident happened before the air traffic control tower was staffed.” Kilmer assured that is not uncommon, as the airport is used 24 hours a day. Air traffic control staff would normally be there starting at 7 A.M., but the incident occurred around 6:08 A.M. According to Robert Katz, a Dallas based commercial pilot of 40-years who follows similar incidents nationwide, in these

conditions it would be expected that the pilot circle the runway and come in on the headwind side, especially given the roughly 6000-foot runway. Flight tracking service FlightAware.com, which tracks plane activity using onboard transponders, indicates that the plane touched down going roughly 100 miles per hour. The 2019 GE Honda TwinJet’s tail number (N826E) is registered to one Andy Leavitt Enterprises

LLC, based out of the Globe Travel Agency and UPS shipping outlet on Broadway, in North Bend. It is also a tenant at the airport, meaning it made corporate travel trips on a roughly weekly basis. The World will have updates to this story as more information is released pending ofﬁcial investigation.

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