Cooperator’s Update Wednesday 21st October

Sean Davis

Sean picked up perishables for the relief center yesterday from the Episcopal Church in sisters. Items to be unloaded at Blue River Relief Center.

Alyssa Brownlee

People are now connecting with caseworkers for housing and it feels like this will be a good model going forward. Alyssa will continue to work on housing options upriver but these are dwindling as more people are moving back up.

Tyee Burwell

Tyee is putting that new beast of a chainsaw to good use!! He’s working on cutting open access to people’s homes and continuing to work on hazard trees. There are two trees across the school that are blocking their Internet and he will be working to drop those today.

Jamee Doolin – McKenzie Community Development Corporation (CDC)

Jamee had a great meeting with Kelly Davis and Nancy Schwan-Howard at the Orchid Health Clinic. They are going to work together to combine resources and outreach for everything from making sure children in the community are able to connect with school and friends to directing folks to the correct individuals based on their needs, also pointing them towards resources they may not have been aware of. Jamee will also set up a time to be available to connect with residents needing help filling forms, etc. and will coordinate a time and place with Kelly to work in conjunction with Laural O’Rourke from Lane County.

Darren Cross – McKenzie River Ranger District

We are finally winding down on the fire, and are now expecting snow down to 2000 ft. The ranger team will be getting smaller and will probably declare the fire contained by next Tuesday! This also means that the resources will go away as the containment continues, but they are working with ODOT and the Core of Engineers to make sure to keep the focus on trouble areas.

Darren reports that his team has been working very closely with the telecoms people, and that Mt Hagan is a very busy place right now. They are getting calls from new operators like T-Mobile and looking forward to seeing what their investment will be in our area.

The rangers will be moving into danger trees and road safety operations on the 19 road and 15 road to get those open and get access to the hot springs and Andrews areas. Still waiting on the closure order shrunk down to get as many roads back open as soon as possible. Guardrail contracts are also being reviewed so expect to see more crews working along the highway soon.

Shane Kamarath – Forest Service

Shane says temporary high-speed Internet on Castle Rock is now working. There are 3 problematic trees there, however, and they have requested to top those. They are also hoping to have some comms available in that dead zone between Belknap and Fish Lake in the future.

Margaret Beilharz – Upper McKenzie Community Center

Margaret reported a large donation made to the Bottle Boys and they will continue to work on that resource. She then introduced the group to Georg Birns with the Masons, who own the property next to the UMCC.

There is still talk about possibly having the UMCC open and available for up to 4 kids with an adult to socially distance and utilize the Internet for school purposes. This would happen on the days the Relief Center in closed. There was a brief discussion about allowing folks to utilize the Internet during evening hours, and these talks will be ongoing based on demand.

Doug Farrington – Living Waters Church

The Church now has power! They may also be able to add an antenna to extend the Internet signal down a little farther and are looking at adding a temporary structure for the winter, possibly a modular unit that could be used for school or whatever other needs they can meet. He’d like to have this in place by Thanksgiving or earlier!

Georg Birns – Eugene Masonic Lodge

Georg shared a brief history of the relationship with Love First and the Masons site. They do own the property next to UMCC that would be willing to make available for temp housing or whatever we may need.

** NOTE ** The group decided that going forward these meetings will take place once a week on Mondays. The next meeting will therefore be at the UMCC on Monday 26th October at 8:00 AM.