A group of friends discuss Measure 8-71 during their morning coffee klatch at Fred Meyer Friday. The Pilot/Jane Stebbins

“Not a snowball’s chance in hell,” said Jim Cross of Harbor, who was sipping coffee with two friends at Ray’s Food Place in Brookings on Friday. “I was a police officer in Montana, and I’ve seen way worse. This has to stop.”

The “Help Wanted” classified that ran for two weeks in the Curry Coastal Pilot and Del Norte Triplicate newspapers seemed too good to be true.

And it was.

Small ports along the Oregon Coast could get much-needed dredging if a bill approved by the U.S. Senate earlier this week is also approved by the House of Representatives.

An amendment sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, is part of a water resources bill and could increase the chances money would be allocated to small, shallow-draft ports.

Curry County residents should approve the public safety levy on the May 21 ballot, Gov. John Kitzhaber said in a statement released this week.

Kitzhaber also said county and city leaders need to be unified in getting the county’s financial house in order, and that House Bill 3453 will be approved and serve as a contingency plan if the levy fails.

Kelly Wilson smiled when she noticed, from her office at Harbor Sanitation District, a river otter as it rolled in the sun on the warm asphalt parking lot last year.

She watched as salmon season rolled around and the critter quickly learned how to shimmy under the fence of the fish cleaning station and steal carcasses, swinging open the door and making its escape to the Chetco River below.

Vet technicians Adrienne Cromer, right, and Jannee Morley prepare blood and enzyme mixture that will help dogs Molly and Clover. The Pilot/Jane Stebbins

Clover, a 9-year-old German shorthair pointer, has already had her knees operated on – three times, in total. Her owners, Amber and veterinarian John Jacobson, live in a house cut into a hillside, and Clover loves to run circles around it – and that includes her finale: taking a flying leap from the high side to the ground.

The burglary that took place at an 85-year-old Harbor woman’s house still has her scared witless, she said, even with the passage of two weeks’ time.

The woman, who asked not to be named for fear of her safety, said she woke up in the night to find a man standing in her bedroom doorway. When she began screaming, he ran to the front door — that she had to unlock for him, he was shaking so hard.

The Brookings City Council was forced to break a tie among the members of its Tourism and Marketing Advisory Committee, who could not agree in a heated discussion last week which Medford-based TV channel might be best on which to advertise.

The nine-member committee – now down to about six due to attrition and lack of steady attendance – was appointed by the council to develop ideas about the best ways to attract visitors to the city. 

OSP Trooper Paul Rushton and property owner Kevin Webb watch a travel trailer burn. The Pilot/Jef Hatch

At the same time, officers from Oregon State Police and the Curry County Sheriff’s Department arrested Christopher Lee Webb, 23, at the scene on two warrants, a felony drug warrant out of Jackson County and a misdemeanor warrant in Curry County for criminal mischief.

Weeds and berry vines growing along the shoulders of Highway 101 through Brookings will  receive more frequent attention since the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has  contracted with the city of Brookings to take care of the brush.

ODOT will pay the city $12,500 a year for vegetation control along the section of Highway 101 that passes through the city and two areas at the south end of the Chetco River Bridge.