U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz said he is willing to return to in-person town halls if decorum and safety can be guaranteed. He specifically called out the group ORD2 Invisible, which Bentz said has orchestrated disruptions at meetings. The group pushed back, and said Bentz is scapegoating the organization to avoid accountability.
After more than two decades of service in every role within Ashland Fire & Rescue, Marshall Rasor has been named the department’s permanent fire chief. Rasor had been interim chief since March after Ralph Sartain retired.
Interstate 5 is closed just south of Ashland after a vehicle fire on the northbound side spread to vegetation nearby, according to reports from the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) as reported on the Watch Duty app.
Jackson County Fire District 5’s financial crisis deepened this week with the discovery of a previously unknown $1.4 million FEMA loan, pushing the district’s total debt to $9.6 million. The district is exploring options, including possible loan forgiveness.
Ashland is moving forward with a regional fire service study aimed at boosting collaboration and emergency response across multiple fire districts.
A metal sunflower now stands in front of the Oregon Cheese Cave in downtown Phoenix as a tribute to the community’s resilience five years after the devastating Almeda Fire. Cheese cave owner Mélodie Picard, who spurred the idea, said the metal sunflower is a “sign of hope” that the town has made it five years since the Labor Day blaze.
Five years after the devastating 2020 Almeda Fire, sunflowers once again lined the streets of Phoenix to honor the loss from the Labor Day blaze, celebrate recovery, and bring a touch of brightness to what for many in the region is a heavy week.
The 2020 Almeda Fire destroyed 144 homes at the Mountain View Estates. Five years later, the manufactured home park for people over 55 has rebuilt 90 “firewise” homes and last year was recognized nationally as the area’s first firewise community.
Mary Martin was one of about 20 people who gathered on the lawn of the 1st Phoenix Presbyterian Church in Phoenix on Monday morning to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Almeda Fire, which burned more than 2,600 households out of their homes in Phoenix, Talent and south Medford on Sept. 8, 2020.
Volunteers from Phoenix and Talent lined the streets of Talent with over 100 vases of sunflowers and brightly colored flowers, continuing a tradition born out of grief and hope in the aftermath of the Almeda Fire. First started in 2020 with anonymous buckets labeled, “from fire to flowers,” the gesture has grown in the five years since the devastating blaze, symbolizing the town’s “hope and resilience.”
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Ask Strider: A worried older brother asks our advice columnist’s advice. And a dog’s guardian wants to know if there is any hope getting their hat-hating dog to calm down. As always, Strider tries to give words that help!
After a successful production of “The Vagina Monologues” and raising more than $2,000 for Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon, Ashland actor and director Lia Dugal intends for “The Climate Monologues” to premiere in Oregon in late 2025 or early 2026 at the Bellview Grange in Ashland.
It’s complicated.
Herbert Rothschild: Whether visualization and intention by themselves can effect broad social change is impossible to determine, but the question merits sustained consideration.
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