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TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2014
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Library books report on CB council agenda
Jordan Cove housing plan
BY TIM NOVOTNY The World
COOS BAY — The Coos Bay Public Library has undergone a number of tests, since it was first discovered late in 2012 that the building was starting to droop. Now, the Coos Bay City Council will hear the prognosis at their meeting Tuesday night. The library has remained open, and engineers say it is still safe for occupancy. However, council documents indicate that the building is going to need repairs at some point and they will be pricey. In October, city operations superintendent Randy Dixon said additional movement had prompted the need for further investigation. The city contracted with the consulting firms SHN and ZCS to perform geotechnical and structural investigations. Representatives from the companies will present their findings at the meeting.
The structural improvement evaluation by ZCS Engineering Inc., of Grants Pass, is included in the agenda packet on the city’s website. It states that the “settlements observed do not constitute a collapse potential or immediate danger,” but adds that the “City will also have to tolerate the public perception of the settlement, with the knowledge that at some point the perception of the safety of the library may be compromised due to the undulations of the floor and the finish damage.” The report estimates the cost to repair the building, at a little more than $6 million, to be about the same as the cost of a new library building. It is, in fact, their recommendation that the city and community would benefit more from the construction of a new library. A copy of the full report is available on the city of Coos Bay website, and the findings will be presented at the April 1 meeting, which starts at 7 p.m.
Oregon pot business is going mainstream
Oversight corrected The World
INSIDE
NORTH BEND — If the Jordan Cove Energy Project and Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline become a reality, thousands of construction workers will need a place to sleep. The North Bend City Council resolved “housekeeping issues” in the Coos Bay Estuary Management Plan at its meeting last week. When the plan was last updated in 2006, planners say they made a 50-foot mistake in aligning the verbiage with the map of the Al Pierce property at North Point under the McCullough Bridge. Those 50 buildable acres are where Jordan Cove has proposed constructing its temporary workforce camp for the estimated 3,500 construction workers during the first four years of construction. The problem is the plan didn’t list a bridge as an allowed use for one 50-foot strip of land, said
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Estuary Management Plan revised to allow bridge on property to proposed workforce camp North Bend city planner David Voss. “During the course of our review of the zoning (on the Al Pierce property) and how it affects the proposed workforce camp, it was discovered that one of the zoning overlays was a 50foot strip running along the shore,” Voss said. That’s how it appeared on the maps. But the actual verbiage said that 50-foot strip extended around the lagoon, meaning developers would not have been allowed to build a bridge connecting the two pieces of land. Coos Bay Mayor Crystal Shoji was the planner working for Al Pierce in 2006 when the Coos Bay Estuary Management Plan
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DEATHS
BY CHELSEA DAVIS
was amended, and said the disconnect was an “oversight.” “The intent was to put the bridge over there,” she said. The property is zoned as industrial, but Voss said that wouldn’t need to change to residential since the workforce camp would be temporary. Instead, it would be allowed as a conditional use. Jordan Cove’s 2,000 housing units would sit on the west side of the lagoon, with all parking on the east side. “There’s no access to that western half of the property without a bridge,” Voss said. “A couple of years ago there was some logs piled up on it, then some pipe was stored there for awhile, but there hasn’t been any activity there for a long time.” During Jordan Cove’s four-year construction period, Jordan Cove public affairs director Michael Hinrichs said there would be — at peak — 2,100 people working on
SEE CAMPS | A8
Fay Baarstad, Coos Bay Michael Paonessa, Allegany Evelyn Simons, Coos Bay Justin Steinfelt, North Bend John Hickey, Reedsport
BY ANDREW TAYLOR The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Congress once again has given doctors temporary relief from a flawed Medicare payment formula that threatened them with a 24 percent cut in their fees. A 64-35 Senate vote Monday cleared the measure for President Barack Obama’s signature, which was expected as early as Tuesday. The $21 billion bill would stave
Richard Bramblett, Coos Bay Darla Neiman, Central Point
Obituaries | A5
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pensaries are opening, although some local governments are taking advantage of the Legislature’s action giving them authority to impose one-year moratoriums. Participants foresee even more opportunities if Oregon voters follow the lead of those in Colorado and Washington to legalize recreational marijuana. Two legalization initiatives could be on the ballot. “You’ve got those who want to play the ‘long game,’ those who want to make a quick buck, those who just don’t want to miss the boat completely,” said dispensary and business consultant Ben Mackaness of Corvallis as he staffed a booth Sunday. “We’ve truly reached a tipping point.” Some were like Steve Prinster, a 53-year-old Gold Beach resident and a medical marijuana cardholder, who was interested in becoming a grower or processor, or perhaps a SEE POT | A8
Obama gets bill giving docs temporary Medicare fix
FORECAST
By Alysha Beck, The World
North Bend city planner David Voss looks over the proposal for the North Point Workforce Housing Project, a plan to build 2,000 temporary housing units for Jordan Cove Energy Project construction workers. The proposed site is located under the southwest side of the McCullough Bridge in North Bend.
EUGENE (AP) — With medical marijuana shops opening their doors in Oregon and the prospect of a statewide legalization vote this fall, the pot business is emerging from underground into the fluorescent light of hotel conference rooms. About 400 people attended the opening day of a medical marijuana conference at the Hilton Eugene on Sunday. Passes for the two-day event cost $349, the RegisterGuard reported. Participants were there for advice on topics such as breaking into the business and government regulations. They were also checking out and touting the latest goods: hash oils and gels, marijuana-infused edibles and smoking or “vaping” accessories. Medical marijuana dispensaries in Oregon have operated in a gray area for more than a decade. Last year, the Legislature put them on a legal footing. With regulations now set, dis-
off a 24 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors for a year and extend dozens of other expiring health care provisions, such as higher payment rates for rural hospitals. The legislation is paid for by cuts to health care providers, but fully half of the cuts won’t kick in for 10 years. It’s the 17th temporary “patch” to a broken payment formula that dates to 1997 and comes after SEE MEDICARE | A8
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