
Ashland to join regional fire study to boost collaboration, emergency response
Ashland is moving forward with a regional fire service study aimed at boosting collaboration and emergency response across multiple fire districts.
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Ashland is moving forward with a regional fire service study aimed at boosting collaboration and emergency response across multiple fire districts.

The long and winding road to Grand Terrace — a 210-unit apartment complex proposed for the northwest end of Ashland — leads to another Ashland City Council hearing Tuesday, Sept. 16.

The Ashland Family YMCA has always had an internal safety plan, says Heidi Hill, chief executive of the organization. But not until last fall did the nonprofit have a specific plan for a wildfire evacuation on the books. It is the first local organization to ask Ashland Emergency Management Coordinator Kelly Burns how to make such a plan.

Ashland’s Parks & Recreation Commission plans to vote Sept. 10 on a nearly $3.4M budget—up $500,000 from earlier estimates. Phase one won’t include a playground, but commissioners say it’s time to move forward.

Loss of access to a pair of popular Ashland watershed trails for a half-year ended up lasting less than three weeks after public outcry and the realization a temporary pedestrian bridge could be installed in a former creek-crossing site without undergoing a time-consuming permitting process resulted in opening of a temporary bridge on Aug. 8, just 19 days after the July 21 trail closure.

Derreck Moore, the new traffic enforcement officer at the Ashland Police Department, met with members of the Transportation Advisory Committee last week as they conducted their regular six-month review of crash and near-miss data for the city.

Ashland School District officials plan to make arrangements over the weekend to relocate an alternative education program from Lincoln School to Ashland High School following the emergency closure of the nearly 100-year-old building after an annual inspection by the city fire marshal turned up severe structural issues.

Wildfire experts from a nonprofit that helps people harden their homes from wildfire, which helps keep their insurance premiums from rising, joined local leaders and residents during a Thursday, Aug. 21, webinar to share their latest findings on how homes ignite during wildfires — and how to prevent it from happening in Ashland.

The conversation about the troubled East Main Park project — now $500,000 over budget — continued on Monday, Aug. 18, during the Ashland City Council study session.

Two decades after it last adopted a wildfire protection plan, the Ashland City Council is due to consider whether to approve a vastly revised plan on Tuesday, Aug. 19. To bring Ashland down from the top 3% of communities in the U.S. at risk from wildfire, the area must become “a fuel break — not a fuel source,” the plan says.
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Black Alliance & Social Empowerment (BASE) Southern Oregon hosted a Kwanzaa celebration Sunday at the Historic Ashland Armory, featuring music, dancing, youth presentations and a candle lighting ceremony.

(It’s free)