Fourth grader Rylan Bruce is one of the first students to play on new structure Friday. The Pilot/Jef Hatch

The total cost of the project, including installation supplies, was about $41,000. The structure weighs 12,025 pounds; is 22 feet long by 60 feet, 9 inches wide, by 18 feet, 9 inches high; and includes a variety of slides, climbers and a 10-foot-high tube slide.

A truck with a shattered front windshield is one of many vehicles vandalized in Brookings and Harbor. Photo courtesy Brookings Police Department

The two were arrested after a citizen on Ransom Avenue reported trash cans were being knocked over in the neighborhood. The citizen was able to give a description of the vehicle, which officers had been searching for from previous incidents, and found it within a minute, according to Lt. Donny Dotson.

Port of Brookings Harbor commissioners Tuesday appointed Mike Manning as interim port commissioner to fill the seat vacated by Kathy Lindley Hall who tendered her resignation in July. 

Manning’s appointment came after port commissioners discussed the applicants in executive session. The other four applicants were Al Cornell, William Ferry, Sharon Hartung and Roger Thompson.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) wants Curry County commissioners, and those in other O&C counties, to consider asking voters for a property tax increase as part of the governor’s plan to put foresters back to work and counties back on their fiscal feet.

Gov. John Kitzhaber’s  proposed plan – and a 14-member panel named to work on it – would ensure adequate sources of timber to support local mills and jobs and meet Oregon’s water and land conservation goals in the process. Kick-starting the logging industry could then help get counties out of the financial straits in which they have found themselves in recent years.

Sheriff’s officers were forced to “dry Taser” a jail inmate Monday after he began threatening to fight the staff and getting the other inmates agitated in the process.

According to Curry County Sheriff John Bishop, the man was threatening to commit suicide by hanging himself, and when officers told him to accompany them out of the cell, he refused and threatened to fight with them.

Emblem Club members Cleo Curtiss and Bonnie Bremer used cash donations to purchase winter coats for local school children. The Pilot / Lorna Rodriguez

 If two local groups have their way, none of Curry County’s children and adults will go cold this winter.

The Brookings Emblem Club #265 and Chetco Federal Credit Union are sponsoring two separate coat drives to collect and provide warm clothing for those in need this winter. 

If the latest campaign contributions are any indication, then the hot Nov. 6 election race to watch in Curry County is for the Position 2 seat for county commissioner, where Democrat Lucie La Bonté and Republican David Brock Smith are running neck-and-neck in spending.

According to the Oregon Secretary of State Elections Division, as of last Friday, Smith had garnered $5,795 in cash contributions, compared to La Bonté’s $5,779. 

On the other side of the Curry County Board of Commissioners ballot, Republican Greg Empson has taken in $1,825 to his contender, Susan Brown’s, $1,660. Those two are vying for Position 3 in the commissioner race. 

The victors of each race this November will join Commissioner David Itzen on the board in January – and face a daunting agenda in 2013.

Four of Curry County’s tsunami sirens – including two in the south end of the county – aren’t working, but residents in those areas need only despair if a local earthquake and tsunami strike.

The sirens stationed along Oregon’s shoreline are only there to notify people of tsunamis triggered from distant earthquakes – and giving them four to six hours to flee, if needed.

“These sirens are not for the big earthquake,” said Don Kendall, the emergency services coordinator for Curry County. “If the siren goes off, turn on the radio and listen to instructions. Find out what you need to do.”

More than 70 Brookings-Harbor High School students completed a health history screening and braved being pricked by a needle Tuesday – all part of donating blood to the American Red Cross. 

“It’s going really well,” BHHS senior and blood drive coordinator Sarah Ziemer said. “Most (students) have been able to get through and donate. I think this one’s the best one we’ve had. I think it’s a really good way to give back to the community, and it goes to a really good cause.”

The Red Cross hoped to collect 56 pints of blood, which would help 168 people. 

Curry County is on the brink of insolvency as the loss of federal timber funds and low property tax rates have left little money to balance the general fund budget. Already the county has cut jobs, turned over several departments to nonprofit groups, and the sheriff is pulling deputies off patrol to staff a dilapidated, overcrowded jail.

Commissioners have funded the current fiscal year by taking $350,000 from the vehicle replacement fund, $700,000 from the County Road fund and $450,000 from the county’s working capital to keep the county operational until July 1, 2013. After that, they don’t expect to have enough in the county’s general fund to keep operating.

Into this situation walk four candidates running for two commissioner positions in the Nov. 6 general election – each one with ideas on how the problems can be solved. ...