80-Acre Dune, Florence, Oregon

Drawing Lines in the Sand (The Register Guard)

(Excerpt) May 23, 2004 Florence, Oregon Drawing Lines in the Sand Residents band together to fight county's sale of large Florence dune. The Register Guard by Winston Ross    May 23, 2005 Drawing Lines In The Sand: Residents band together to fight county sale of Florence dune By Winston Ross The Register-Guard       FLORENCE - To the occasional tourist, the giant dune across the Siuslaw River from Old Town may hardly be noticeable, except for the occasional summertime whir of an all-terrain vehicle leaving tracks in the sand. To the people of Florence, it's a treasure; one of the few uninhabited stretches of landscape in this booming coastal town; a piece of county-owned property that many argue should remain exactly as it is: completely vacant. Lane County commissioners - who acquired bits and pieces of the land through tax foreclosure over decades - discovered the depth of that sentiment quickly after they broached the idea of selling an 80-acre parcel that includes the sand dune to a developer. The commissioners figured it would bring about $300,000 to $500,000, which would be given to the county parks department. Florence residents responded to the idea by flooding the phone lines at county offices and the local newspapers with protests, circulating a petition against the plan and writing "no sale" in gigantic sandscript on the dune itself. Commissioners are now having second thoughts about the proposal. "There are a lot of things I didn't know about this transaction," said Commissioner Bill Dwyer, who said that he's received about 50 e-mails, letters and phone calls in opposition to a sale. "This was presented as a surplus piece of property, a sale that wouldn't affect the landscape." An active and vocal grass-roots movement is taking no chances, however . A small group calling itself "Save our Dune Alliance" is circulating petitions demanding a public hearing before any further decisions about the property are made - although such a hearing is already required by law before the property could be sold. "Should we sell Mount Rushmore to help shore up the national deficit?" asked Mapleton resident Bill Fleenor. "Perhaps the Saudis would buy it and place the face of King Abdul on it. Wouldn't that be grand?" Even west Lane Commissioner Anna Morrison - who once spoke of maximizing the possible profit from the land - only offered a terse "Until I see an appraisal (of the property) ... I'm not making a decision" in an interview with the Register-Guard last Wednesday. Public pressure on the commission has been building since last month, when people first learned of the potential sale of the 80-acre parcel, which also includes a lake and some wetland and wooded areas west of U.S. Highway 101 and on the southern banks of the Siuslaw River. The sale of the parcel is actually part of a larger policy change at the county level, Morrison said. Last year, commissioners decided they'd transfer tax-foreclosed land in various parts of the county to parks, because selling the property without doing so would mean the proceeds would be divided among all the different districts - schools, for example - that collect property taxes. In that case, the county would only get a fraction of the money from the sale. When the discussion about the policy took place last year, Morrison said, she was reluctant to approve the transfers, because it would take away money from other taxing districts. But, because the parks department is funded by user fees - which aren't keeping pace with rising maintenance costs - it comes down to a question of priorities, she said. "This body has to decide, do we want to maintain the county's assets that belong to the citizens or don't we?" Morrison said. "It has nothing to do with a specific parcel. It has to do with the policy we adopted." But to the group that's mobilized in opposition to a sale of the Glenada parcel, it has everything to do with a specific parcel. "It is our view, our town and our asset," wrote Florence resident Bruce Jarvis in an e-mail to the county. "Do not destroy something that cannot be replaced." Now a solution sits on the horizon that could make everybody happy, however. The Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation is sending planners to the site later this month, to analyze whether the state should buy the land. It already borders a 120-acre piece of state park property, which is now only partially occupied by Camp Florence, a school for juvenile offenders run by the Oregon Youth Authority. Dave Wright, the Parks department's assistant director for operations, said that the state may decide to use lottery funds to purchase the additional property, but he's not sure what would be done with it then. "If you have a piece of property already and (there is) something that adds value to it and is available to you, it makes sense to try and act on it," Wright said. Another option is to sell the land to the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, which economic development director Bob Garcia said would not result in development of the dune area. But given the history of how the property beneath Three Rivers Casino was taken into trust - some have claimed that the tribes misled the community about their intent for the land - commissioners don't appear warm to that idea. Commissioner Dwyer, for example, said that such an option is out of the question. But he did say he's interested in a sale to the state parks department. "We would love for it to remain in public ownership," he said, "if we can address some of our financial needs." Winston Ross can be reached at (541) 902-9030 or rgcoast@oregonfast.net. http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/05/23/a1.dune.0523.html

Save Our Dune Alliance Home Page

Save Our Dune Alliance c/o P.O. Box 1212 Florence, Oregon  97439

Link to blank petition:  Petition to County Commissioners