Brookings-Harbor High School staff are working to address student drug use and experimentation.  

BHHS Principal Larry Martindale estimates that 35 to 50 percent of the school population uses or has experimented with drugs – marijuana, alcohol, prescription drugs and steroids – this year. 

“The concern has been brought to myself, my staff and our police department that we do have an issue with drugs,” Martindale said.

 SALEM – Helping cash-strapped rural counties reliant on timber payments stay afloat is a high priority, the governor said Tuesday, noting that both long- and short-term solutions are needed.

Some solutions, however, are far less likely than others.

“There is no magic pot of money here at the state to bail them out,” Gov. John Kitzhaber said to a room full of reporters and editors from around the state.

The community is invited to the official dedication of the Curry County Campus of Southwestern Oregon Community College starting at 2 p.m. Friday. The celebration and open house will include tours of the building and refreshments. The Pilot/Jef Hatch

The public will be given tours of the new Southwestern Oregon Community College Curry Campus beginning at 2 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27.

The facility, touted as a “campus within a building,” can be seen atop a hill from Highway 101 between Rainbow Rock and Lone Ranch Beach on land donated by the U.S. Borax Corp. The Curry Campus is located on Lone Ranch Parkway, a new street that will eventually be extended to serve future development.

In addition to the parking at the campus, visitors may also park at the Harris Beach Rest Area where Curry Public Transit will supply shuttle service at 15 minute intervals from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. and then ever half hour until 6 p.m.

 The city of Brookings is taking advantage of historic low interest rates to save $700,000 on loan payments for the wastewater treatment plant built in 2001.

However, Administrative Services Director Janell Howard said that won’t translate to lower sewer bills for city residents because the  money being saved will be used for a remediation project at the plant.

Howard outlined the refinancing plan Monday night during the Brookings City Council meeting. Council members scheduled a special meeting for 5 p.m. Monday to give the go-ahead to refinance the Department of Environmental Quality loan.

 GOLD BEACH – Curry County commissioners on Monday declared a county emergency and wrote Gov. Kitzhaber asking that he declare a state of emergency for Curry County as the result of the storms that began on Jan. 17 and continue to occur.

“Our initial estimate of public and private damages exceeds $500,000 countywide,” the commissioners wrote the governor.

“This does not include any estimate of the damage to state highways located within our county. There were, thankfully, no deaths or injuries associated directly with the event,” they wrote.

Cement-encased styrofoam dock supports are found Tuesday at on the beach near Chetco Point Park. The Pilot/Bill Vogel

Brookings residents are invited to pitch in during a work party Saturday morning to remove Styrofoam blocks from the beach.

Participants will meet at 10 a.m. at Mill Beach, where much of the material has washed up. Other debris is at Chetco Point, said Bill Vogel, who is helping organize the cleanup effort.

It’s a potential environmental problem, he said, because small pieces of Styrofoam are breaking off from the blocks and getting into the ocean water.

Trooper Paul Rushton throws a rope to Sheriff's Deputy John Ensley as they rescue Marvin Beams from his riverside home, which was flooded above its foundation as the Chetco River rose. The Pilot/Jef Hatch

Eighty-six-year-old Guy Barnes walked carefully across his living room Friday. 

Water squished underfoot with each step in the park model house he shares with wife Verena Diehl, 88, just a stone’s throw from the Chetco River.

Outside, water rose hip deep a day earlier against the AtRivers Edge RV Resort home and flowed inside, ruining the carpeting that must now be replaced.

 After an hour long workshop full of questions to an attorney and charter school expert, the Brookings-Harbor School Board voted 3-2 Wednesday night to deny a modified proposal for a charter school for grades 5-8 which would emphasize an alternative learning method.

The Kalmiopsis Elementary School library held a standing-room-only crowd as charter school supporters, district employees, parents and community members listened to board member Brad Peters, Board Vice-Chair Carol Slewing and Board Chair Jamie Ryan reject Riverside Charter Academy’s proposal. Board members Bob Horel and Allene Fewell voted in favor of the proposal.

Peters said he wouldn’t be a responsible board member if he cast a favorable vote.

 GOLD BEACH – Michael Kelley, sentenced to 25 years to life when he was convicted in 1987 of murdering his half-sister, is being paroled from prison.

Rumors in Curry County said Kelley was being released here, but authorities say that is not the case.

“The latest information we have is that Kelley will be released from prison on Feb. 1 and is to be supervised in Lane County,” Curry County Undersheriff Bob Rector said. 

 Commercial crab season hit a historic high point late Tuesday when the Dynamik pulled into the Port of Brookings Harbor with 67,300 pounds of crab.

At $3 per pound, it was the most lucrative single fishing haul any boat has ever recorded at the port – a total of $201,900.

Todd Whaley, 47, who co-owns the 66-foot craft with Bryan Nolte, 37, said there was nothing special about the outing.