(Updated at 8:02 p.m. to correct an error. Crescent City Mayor Blake Inscore cut the ribbon on Front Street.)
Crescent City added another piece to the Front Street reconstruction puzzle when it cut the ribbon on the block between I and Play streets on Friday. Construction on the final block, which brings the reconstructed drive to U.S. 101, will start next year, according to Councilwoman Kelly Schellong Feola.
Crescent City used state and federal grant transportation dollars, Community Project Funding from Congressman Jared Huffman’s office and Measure S tax moneys to pay for the project. Schellong Feola thanked the city’s state and federal partners who “worked so hard” to allow Crescent City to cobble the Front Street project together.
Crescent City Mayor Blake Inscore cut the ribbon on Front Street. He was joined by Schellong Feola, Ernie Perry, chairman of the Measure S Oversight Committee, Councilor-Elect Candace Tinkler, Public Works Director Dave Yeager and Cindy Vosburg, executive director of the Crescent City Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce.
Former elected official Christopher Paasch appeared before the Curry County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday to make a formal pitch to ask voters to create a service district in an effort to rebuild the sheriff’s office.
Paasch, who retired from the Board following the 2022 election, brought Sheriff John Ward with him, and urged commissioners on Wednesday to declare their intention to form a Curry County Law Enforcement Service District and schedule the first of two public hearings Oregon statute requires to place the measure before voters next May.
The proposed service district would be funded through a property tax of $1.12 per $1,000 of assessed valued property and would generate roughly $4.2 million annually, Paasch said. The revenue would pay for eight patrol deputies, a civil deputy, an administrative assistant, two sergeants, one lieutenant and the sheriff.
Crescent City Fire & Rescue participates in a local Fourth of Parade. | Photo: Jessica Cejnar Andrews
Kevin Carey said he and his colleagues thought a Class 2 ISO rating was unattainable for Crescent City Fire & Rescue. So when he announced the department’s new designation with the Insurance Services Office Inc. before the City Council on Monday, the fire chief credited a slew of people, most especially the late Steve Wakefield.
Carey delivered the news to Wakefield’s wife Debra after first informing the city manager.
“She was absolutely ecstatic,” Carey said. “She knew that Steve would be super proud of us.”
Inside the former Bank of America building on H Street in Crescent City resides an abundant collection of abstract mixed media paintings and sculptures by Ukrainian artist Val Polyanin. In 2022, the city became responsible for over 900 pieces of Polyanin’s art. Polyanin donated his collection to the city for safekeeping after rising rent costs forced him to abandon his roadside gallery alongside U.S. 101 south of town.
After debating whether or not to accept the donation, city councilors eventually agreed to allocate $10,000 out of their economic development fund toward obtaining his collection and curating the exhibit.
In May of 2023, the city held a grand opening for this exhibit, aptly named “Safekeeping,” for “First Friday”. These events, organized in conjunction with the Downtown Divas, are designed to draw traffic to local businesses in the downtown area and stimulate economic activity.
Redwood Voice Youth Media had initially been enlisted by the city to produce a short documentary film to be played on loop at this art exhibit. This video detailed Val Polyanin’s background, journey to America, and passion for artistic freedom.
Curry County commissioners last week proceeded with a proposed partnership with Gold Beach to create a school resource and community resource officer (SRO/CRO) position using opioid settlement dollars.
But state procurement laws and the lack of a proposed contract is keeping the Board from moving forward on a request from jail commander Lt. Jeremy Krohn to provide addiction treatment services to inmates using those same settlement dollars.
The county would have to send out a request for proposals to service providers before it moves forward with telehealth opioid abuse disorder treatment at the jail, Finance Director Keina Wolf told commissioners at a special meeting Friday.
“More than likely there is more than one place that can provide us with telehealth capabilities and we need to give equal opportunity for people to apply for those contracts,” she said. “I know [Krohn] did say he reached out and had spoken with different individuals, but there’s not a contract attached so we don’t know what the not-to-exceed number would be and we don’t know what services exactly are going to be provided.”
In the 2024 Peace and Dignity Journeys run, participants embark on a seven-month prayer run from Fairbanks, Alaska, and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, converging at El Cuaca, Colombia. This journey emphasizes the commitment to prayer, underlining the obligation to strengthen spiritual connections among Indigenous Peoples across the Western Hemisphere.
Join Rory McCain and Ethan Caudill-DeRego of Redwood Voice as they meet up with and interview the runners from the north during their overnight stay with the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation.
Crescent City councilors last week supported a proposed partnership with South Coast Community Aquatics in Brookings to give Del Norte County pool patrons a place to swim when the Fred Endert Municipal Pool closes for construction in December.
But on Monday, SCCA President Val Early told the Brookings City Council that discussions about how the arrangement would work are still preliminary. She floated the idea of instituting a community pass for patrons on both sides of the state line since Crescent City and SCCA would be funding the program. The details still needed to be ironed out before the agreement goes before the Brookings City Council for approval, she said.
“If we’re able to put that together and [if] you feel like that’s a worthwhile project, that would be a pilot program for us to be able to gauge what our winter activity would be,” Early said. “If we’re able to put together, this collaborative effort would start to happen in December and would go through February because those are the months the Crescent City pool is going to be closed.”
The Fred Endert Municipal Pool is expected to undergo upgrades to its HVAC system as well as its pool deck and locker room floors. As a result, the pool will be closed from December through February, City Manager Eric Wier said.
Under the proposed agreement with SCCA, the nonprofit organization that took over management of the Brookings pool in 2023 would be responsible for facility-related costs. This includes heating the outdoor pool to between 83 and 84 degrees Fahrenheit, Wier told the City Council at its Oct. 21 meeting. Crescent City would provide the lifeguards and supervisory staff needed to operate the pool, he said.
Crescent City councilors hope the community, especially local businesses, come to their next meeting ready to chime in on four designs they’re considering for an entryway into Beachfront Park and the downtown area.
Their goal is to select a design and decide if Front Street should be renamed to something that’s more reflective of Crescent City. Some options kicked around Monday include Ocean Drive, Oceanfront Drive and Beachfront Drive.
But, according to City Manager Eric Wier, the City Council doesn’t have much time to make a decision. The city needs to spend the $3 million in Clean California Grant dollars it received for the project by June 30, 2026. This means it needs to hire a contractor by early spring 2025 and have the project under construction between May and October, according to Wier’s staff report.
The City Council hopes to decide on a project design by Nov. 4, according to Mayor Blake Inscore.
On Monday, though he noted that his days on the City Council are coming to a close soon, Inscore said if Front Street was renamed, he preferred Beachfront Drive over Oceanfront Drive.
“From a Google analytics [standpoint], if you put in Beachfront Park, you’re going to get Beachfront Drive and you’re going to get businesses associated with that,” he said. “I would use one term from a marketing standpoint. We have two hotels called Oceanfront. Again, from Google analytics, we don’t want to be confused with a hotel.”
Marilyn Gray Wintersteen admitted she didn’t think much about what growers were spraying on the lily fields in her neighborhood until last year when it hit her in the face.
Wintersteen was planting flowers in her backyard on Ocean View Drive when she got a face full of spray from the adjacent lily field.
“My skin burned, my eyes burned, my tongue swelled up, I had blisters on it [and] I ended up in the ER,” she said. “I got from the back of my house where they were spraying around to the front of my house and bent over to catch my breath. I could not breathe.”
Wintersteen, a 35 year resident, told her story to the North Coast Water Quality Control Board at a town hall meeting at the Smith River United Methodist Church on Monday and to the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
Both meetings, and a third at the United Methodist Church in Crescent City, focused on the Water Quality Control Board’s efforts to develop water quality regulations for Easter lily bulb production in the Smith River plain. Those regulations will be in an order monitoring and mitigating the impacts of copper diuron and other pesticides and fertilizers on the watershed aquatic ecosystem.
Curry County commissioners considered two proposed uses for opioid settlement dollars on Thursday. The first proposal was an agreement with Gold Beach for a school resource officer position, while the second involved opioid use disorder treatment at the jail.
Competing proposals on potential uses for opioid settlement dollars put jail commander Lt. Jeremy Krohn at odds with the Curry County Board of Commissioners on Thursday.
Krohn’s request for $36,000 in opioid settlement dollars to provide telehealth services to inmates struggling with addiction came after commissioners supported a proposed five-year intergovernmental agreement with Gold Beach to create a school resource officer position.
Under that proposal, Curry County would pay Gold Beach $149,100 in opioid settlement dollars for the first year. This cost would cover the officer’s salary and benefits, vehicle accessories and insurance, outfitting for the officer as well as software. The county would continue paying for those expenditures throughout the five-year term of the agreement, which includes a 5 percent cost of living adjustment and step increases for the officer.
During the summer, the school resource officer would transition into a community resource officer, according to Commissioner Brad Alcorn.
Though Curry County Finance Director Keina Wolf said there were enough opioid settlement dollars to fund both programs, Krohn took issue with the SRO proposal. He said he was perturbed that he had to make a presentation to obtain approval to use those funds, but Gold Beach and the school districts benefiting from the SRO position didn’t have to make a presentation.
Without naming who they were, Krohn said he sent the proposed intergovernmental agreement between the county and Gold Beach to “colleagues who handle opioid settlement funds” for review.
“They said you could not fund a full position based on that IGA through opiate money,” Krohn told commissioners. “They conservatively said 20 percent to fund it. So, with that, be prepared for that to come up — that we’re over funding out of the opioid settlement funds. There will be an audit for that.”
