TREATING EBOLA
STREAK CONTINUES
WHO OKs use of experimental drugs, A7
Hernandez, Mariners keep rolling, B1
TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2014
Serving Oregon’s South Coast Since 1878
theworldlink.com
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ORCCA out of the red Nonprofit pulls out of deficits, controversy of years past ■
BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
COOS BAY — Oregon Coast Community Action has streamlined services and overhauled its bookkeeping, putting the nonprofit on solid financial ground after a rocky past couple of years. Auditors are combing their way through ORCCA this week, compiling information for the organization’s annual audit. Director Mike Executive Lehman was hired in February 2013, several months after CEO
Mary Schoen-Clark resigned in the midst of intense criticism that she created a hostile work environment and ruined relationships with local food pantries. This year’s 45-minute budget process was a 180-degree turn from 2013, when the board discussed the budget for nearly eight hours and still had a $400,000 deficit, $170,000 of which was in South Coast Food Share. In the last year, most of those issues have been resolved, with only a $3,000 deficit left in Great Afternoons and a $3,000 to $4,000 hole in Food Share. “A couple years ago, we really were in risk of being noncompliant,” Lehman said. “It’s not that we were not spending money correctly, but (auditors couldn’t) tell
what (we were) doing. It’s just such a nightmare.” This sigh of relief came after a year of cutting about $400,000 in operating costs. Some staff was cut, as well as excess in programs, including cutting the Food Share trip to Curry County from three times a week to once a week. “It’s not that they were fat and happy before, but we just tightened everything down and made certain we were doing things smart,” Lehman said. “Some of that’s bad in that one of the things we really struggle in is to get the development department up and running, which is raising grants and fundraising. At one time we had four people doing development, SEE ORCCA | A8
By Alysha Beck, The World
Mike Lehman is the executive director of Oregon Coast Community Action, a local nonprofit that runs multiple programs such as the South Coast Food Share and Head Start.
County could see more cash from CEP
Strumming a tune
New formula would divert more funds toward public safety ■
BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
By Lou Sennick, The World
After two months of taking ukulele lessons, about a dozen youngsters perform a few songs Monday morning at the Boys and Girls Club of Southwestern Oregon. For the second year, a local group of ukulele players have spent two months of summer teaching the youngsters the four-stringed instruments.
US sends food, Robin Williams, boisterous comedy star, dead at 63 water, other aid to Iraq BY HAVEN DALEY AND HILLEL ITALIE The Associated Press
Police reports . . . . A2 40 Stories . . . . . . . A2 South Coast. . . . . . A3 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . A4
Comics . . . . . . . . . . A6 Puzzles . . . . . . . . . . A6 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . B1 Classifieds . . . . . . . C3
Robin Williams performs at the sixth annual Stand Up For Heroes benefit concert for injured service members and veterans in New York on Nov. 8, 2012. Williams, whose freeform comedy and adept impressions dazzled audiences for decades, has died in an apparent suicide. He was 63. The Associated Press
SEE WILLIAMS | A8
Alice Engles-Jones, North Bend William Mason, Coos Bay Eugene Ellis, Coos Bay
Obituaries | A5
Storms hinder firefighters More than 1,500 lightning strikes in central Oregon light 20 new fires. Page A6
FORECAST
INSIDE
WASHINGTON — The U.S. is delivering food, water and aid teams to try to help tens of thousands of people who have been forced from their homes in Iraq in the fresh wave of violence in the country’s north. U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah said Monday that the U.S. has deployed a disaster response team to Iraq to help distribute humanitarian aid. Much of the assistance will go to thousands of members of an Iraqi religious minority group known as Yazidis who have been trapped on a mountaintop in northwest Iraq by Sunni militants with the Islamic State group. The team will help speed food, water and other life-saving supplies to Iraqis. Shah said the U.S. teams would help coordinate the assistance distribution among Iraqi officials, international partners and humanitarian aid agencies. U.S. Central Command said Monday that it had conducted a fifth airdrop of food and water for the displaced Yazidis. The command said U.S. military aircraft have delivered a total of more than 85,000 meals and more than 20,000 gallons of fresh drinking water.
STATE
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — He was the funniest guy in the room, something that made it all the harder for friends and fans to accept that beneath that reservoir of frenetic energy and seemingly endless good humor resided demons so dark they could push Robin Williams to suicide. It was no secret that the Oscar-winning actor had suffered for years from periodic bouts of substance abuse and depression — he made reference to it himself in his comedy routines. But word that he had killed himself Monday at his San Francisco Bay Area home left both friends in the Hollywood community and neighbors in the quiet community of Tiburon that he called home equally stunned and grief-stricken. “Robin and I were great friends, suffering from the same little-known disease: depression. I never could have expected this ending to his life and to ours with him. God bless him
DEATHS
BY LARA JAKES
COOS BAY — The Waterfront Development Partnership will slice off a chunk of its community service fee revenues to support the Coos County Sheriff’s Office and jail. County Commissioner Bob Main made a case at the WDP work group’s Monday meeting for the financially strapped departments, noting that about half of the county’s $22.9 million general fund is needed to keep the Sheriff’s Office and jail operational. Originally, the overarching Community Enhancement Plan allotted 25 percent of Jordan Cove’s proposed community service fee payments to a waterfront and economic development organization, now called the WDP. But the work group decided Monday that each year for the first four years, 3 percent of Jordan Cove’s $12 million-a-year payments would be set aside as a public safety grant for the county. As the CEP is constructed right now, the county will already get 9.25 percent of the total community service fees since it is a taxing district on the North Spit. That amounts to about $1.11 million a year for the first four years of fixed payments. This extra 3 percent would throw another $360,000 a year into county coffers. Main said the county may still have to start billing for jail services, though, if the Secure Rural Schools payments come to a halt and if Sen. Ron Wyden’s O&C bill doesn’t include provisions for revenue for the 18 O&C counties. The jail might also need to reduce beds, kicking even more offenders immediately back onto the streets. The jail houses at least 90 people every day, Main said. The county received about $2 million in SRS funds last year, and sent $5 million from the County Forest Fund to sheriff and jail, but the timber revenue “we had stockpiled is running out.” “We’ll use up most if not all of the forestry fund for 2015-2016,” Main said. “In 2016-2017, it’s going to be looking somewhat grim.” In the chance that O&C “does come through,” the county wouldn’t need that extra 3 percent, said
Cloudy 64/55 Weather | A8
SEE CEP | A8