Large businesses — the hospital, government agencies, schools and others — could benefit with the arrival of LightSpeed Network (LSN) to the city of Brookings.

The city last week agreed to grant a five-year franchise agreement to LSN to provide computer-based communications services within the city.

After more than two years of negotiations, the county department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been successfully “spun-off” from the county into its own not-for-profit organization.

As of Feb. 1, it will be known as Curry Community Health.

The city of Brookings is applying for a federal Community Development Block Grant to remodel the old Southwestern Oregon Community College site on Pine Street to a Head Start facility – but has to adopt a policy concerning the police department’s use of excessive force in civil rights demonstrations to get it.

The connection is vague, said Brookings City Manager Gary Milliman.

Smith River resident Michael Ray Perry, 49, was arrested Monday on 10 counts of animal abuse in connection with malnourished and injured horses found and taken from a Brookings property that same day.

The Curry County Sheriff’s Office received a call from Brookings resident Michael Moss reporting the neglect of 10 horses left on his property by Perry. Moss said it appeared as if the horses had not been fed or watered regularly.

Luke Christensen gives up his "locks of love."

By Jane Stebbins

Pilot staff writer

For almost a year, 9-year-old Luke Christensen has put up with taunts and jeers.

Kids have been calling him a hippy. A sales clerk where he went to pick out a bicycle for his birthday kept trying to direct him toward the girl’s bike section. Worse, even his brothers have been calling him a girl. All because his hair flows well beyond his shoulders.

The Pilot

Curry County Sheriff John Bishop is breathing easier now following the official announcement Wednesday of President Barack Obama’s proposed ban on new assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.

“I’ve looked at the president’s executive orders and there is nothing new that isn’t already happening in Oregon,” Bishop said Thursday. “There is nothing unconstitutional in the orders.”

Obama’s orders still have to be approved by Congress. Without that, the 23 executive orders apply only to the federal government, not local or state law enforcement agencies.

The Port of Brookings Harbor is researching  the possibility of adding a transient occupancy tax to the May ballot after Commissioner Jim Relaford mentioned the idea to his fellow commissioners during Tuesday night’s meeting. 

“It’s just a thought,” Relaford said during the meeting. “It could generate revenue for the port. Right now, we don’t get much revenue from tourists.

The transient occupancy tax would be charged to customers of hotels or RV parks  located within the port district, which stretches from the Oregon border north to the Pistol River.

The land on which the former Chetco School sits on about five miles up the North Bank Chetco River Road is worth some money.

The buildings themselves? Not so much.

That was the opinion of Brookings attorney Ted Fitzgerald, who told the Brookings-Harbor School Board Wednesday night that “based on the condition of the property, the value is in the land.”

Two Port Orford men wanted in connection with the assault of another man last Friday night have been arrested and are being held in the Curry County Jail on $5.5 million and $1 million bonds.

Allen Douglas Vonnevin, 33, and Glenn Allen Burkhow, Jr., 32, were being sought by local law enforcement after allegedly assaulting another man with a baseball bat and tossing his body over the edge of an ocean cliff at Paradise Point State Park in the early hours Jan. 11. Passersby on the beach found the injured man and called 911.

Vonnevin was discovered in a house Thursday evening, said Curry County Sheriff John Bishop, and Burkhow turned himself in.

The City of Brookings is considering building a caretaker’s unit at Azalea Park, primarily to save time transferring maintenance equipment from park to park, but also as a “presence” to deter vandalism, said City Manager Gary Milliman.

The most recent vandalism that took place at the popular facility was before Christmas, when two Brookings girls stole the baby Jesus doll from its manger display. The doll was found with profanity scribbled on it; the two girls involved were cited.

Other vandalism discovered there involved the Nature’s Coastal Holiday extravaganza, as well, including among its decorations a 450,000-light display, which caused about $250 in damage. Last summer, someone broke into the snack shack adjacent to the bandshell, leaving a cryptic message in ketchup apologizing for the break-in, but admitting they were hungry.