Featured - Page 4

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com YACHATS – When Yachats firefighters reported for duty this month they started working under a new wage scale designed to keep them happy – and not lured away to another job. The board of the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District aggressively increased firefighter pay last month to attract new staff and keep current ones from moving

            (See related, Lincoln County story under Community News) KRISTIAN FODEN VENCIL/Oregon Public Broadcasting SEASIDE — Traci Collings and her husband have lived in Seaside for 21 years. He fixes bikes and she makes about $13 an hour cleaning vacation rentals. But four years ago, they fell on hard times. “We had a really

By QUINTON SMITH and CHERYL ROMANO/YachatsNews.com There will be fireworks shows – two nights of them. And a parade. And music. And an art show, duck races, and a pancake breakfast. After a two-year absence – although just one in Waldport – the full slate of traditional Fourth of July events on the central Oregon coast are back with

YACHATS – The Yachats Planning Commissioned voted unanimously Tuesday to turn down a conditional use permit that could have allowed a hotly debated hotel/motel project along Yachats Ocean Road. There was little debate among six commissioners during their vote after a 4-hour hearing saying that the Cottages at Agate Point had major issues involving access, parking, traffic and design.

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com For the first time in at least two decades, there is competition to provide ambulance service for most of Lincoln County. American Medical Response/Northwest, an arm of a $4.3 billion nationwide medical transportation company, is challenging longtime provider Pacific West Ambulance for a five-year contract to serve four areas of the county. The county is divided

By JORDAN ESSOE/YachatsNews.com YACHATS — A musical instrument restorer attracted to ambitious projects came out of retirement to bring one more trounced instrument back to life. This time it was something he’d never worked on before. David Rivinus is a 72-year-old expert restorer and innovative luthier who in the past invested as much as a year of intense, unpaid

By JORDAN ESSOE and DANA TIMS/YachatsNews.com They’re hard to miss. Blooming on shop doors and restaurant windows up and down the coast, across the state, and nationwide are signs that read “Help Wanted” and “Now Hiring.” The signs come and go and repeat along the boulevard. One may disappear only to be replaced by another directly across the street. Some

By BREEANA LAUGHLIN/YachatsNews.com Lincoln County health officials and law enforcement are raising the alarm about a spike in overdoses they believe are caused by a highly potent narcotic used in counterfeit prescription pills. While the recent deaths of two Portland high schoolers and the overdoses of five West Point cadets on spring break in Florida has grabbed headlines, the

By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews.com and NICHOLAS TURNER/The Seattle Times Those brightly lit boats working just off offshore can mean only one thing – market squid have just returned to Oregon’s coastal waters. The lights, used for night fishing, transfix the small, fist-sized squid, which are then rounded up in nets. The commercial viability of the market squid fishery, which has

By LYNNE TERRY/Oregon Capital Chronicle The last of the pandemic limits Oregonians have endured for two years are ending, with state authorities lifting mask requirements by Friday, March 19, and the state of emergency ending April 1, state officials announced Thursday. That means that this spring, life in Oregon will officially be back to normal though the virus is