Cheers and Jeers

Blazing trails
Times are tough. Budgets are tight. But Bay Area Ford Leadership Program participants found the wherewithal to improve trails and add doggie-dropping stations to the trails in John Topits Park. Cheers for their community-minded work.

Boosting local kids
Les Engle is the Bay Area’s most colorful pitchman. But the star of Farr’s True Value ads stands out for donating his paychecks to scholarships for Marshfield High School grads. Cheers for this cheerleader who bolsters community cheer.

Vote for MEEEEEEE!
Cheers for the calendar. Specifically, cheers for each passing day that brings us closer to the end of a rancorous political season. Representative democracy is a magnificent institution, the finest form of government ever invented. But goodness, it’s noisy!

A star to steer by
Building a tall ship in Empire seems like a fanciful notion, especially when you hear the potential price: as much as $4 million. But it would be a grand venture and a draw for tourists. Cheers for ambitious dreams.

Say it with money
Jeers for overpaid busybodies. Robert Mercer, a reclusive Long Island financier, dumped $300,000 into a stealthy TV campaign against Congressman Peter DeFazio. Hey, do Oregon voters tell Mercer how to run his hedge fund?

Bricks and bedpans
On Thursday, Bay Area Hospital showed off its plans for a 98,000-square-foot addition. The next day, Coquille Valley Hospital broke ground on its own 60,000-square-foot project. Cheers for investments in local health care.

Seven and oh, oh, oh!
The editorial philosophy of Cheers and Jeers is technically nonpartisan on the subject of collegiate sports. Nevertheless, we feel obliged to say this: Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.

Having a ball
Think Charleston, and you usually think fishing. But a citizens’ park association attracts people to town to play and watch baseball. They’ll hold a fundraiser at 5 p.m. today at The Mill. Cheers for their hard work.

Signs of season
It’s one thing to kvetch about proliferating political signs along roadways. (Some stretches tout the same candidate multiple times.) But stealing them is a blow to democracy. Jeers to whoever swiped campaign cardboard from 10th Street in Coos Bay.

What’s with second?
At first, it seemed the lack of a second stymied Oregon Resources Corp.’s tax abatement. Turns out Coos County commissioners could have voted 2-1, but Chairman Kevin Stufflebean wanted to convert holdout Bob Main. Jeers for pointless delay.

Civic civility
Seven candidates seeking Coos Bay City Council seats could have triggered an avalanche of mud. Cheers to these hopefuls and others local candidates who campaign on their strengths and ideas, eschewing negative messages.

Hooks and ladders
Ever dream of being a firefighter? Twenty people who sign up for Coos Bay’s Citizens Fire Academy. It starts Tuesday. Cheers for raising residents’ awareness of fire protection and prevention.

Meeowch!
Just when you’d think nothing could be new in the chicanery department, police report the theft of a kitten — we ask you, a kitten? — from a Coos Bay address Friday. Jeers to someone so mean-spirited.

Fighting the blight
Besmirching our fair community with graffiti is jeerable, and the miscreants are maddeningly hard to catch. But let’s be positive: Cheers to property owners who gamely apply scrub brushes and fresh coats of paint to resist the barbarians.

Fishy fun, noon to 6
We coastal dwellers enjoy an abundance of briny blessings. The bounty is worth celebrating, especially if the celebration involves a meal. Cheers for Octoberfish, today’s festival of food and fun at the old Charleston School.

Highlighting a horror
Cheers for the Zonta Club’s efforts to educate everyone about human trafficking. (Yes, it actually happens around here.) A free event at the Coos Bay Public Library on Tuesday night promises to be an eye opener.

A burning issue
A fire department is a godsend when your house is burning. Better still if the blaze busters teach families how to avoid fires in the first place. Cheers for last week’s flock of fire prevention events.

Gulp!
An OSU scientist has spent $400,000 in federal funds trying make raw oysters safer to swallow. Jeers for buying a better trap for a mouse that needn’t be captured.

We deserve to know
Democracy can’t function in fog. Citizens need to know what their government is doing. Cheers to Oregon Attorney General John Kroger for promoting transparency, with a report on flaws in our state’s public records and meetings laws.

No way for Pedway
Coos Bay city councilors still can’t decide the fate of the downtown’s forlorn patch of concrete. Jeers for not deep-sixing plans to gussy up a place no one wants to visit.

Misty-take
North Bend police only warned a resident for running a fog machine and alarming neighbors, who mistook the mist for smoke. Cheers for going easy on a harmless Halloween activity.

Uneasy riders
Oregon motorcyclists’ average age is rising. Fatal crashes likewise shot from 29 in 2002 to 51 in 2009, many of them avoidable. Jeers to would-be wild ones who don’t take training on handling their powerful bikes.

Broken promise
The man known as Two Bears needed more than 40 years to wrest a disability settlement from the Department of Veterans Affairs for his service in Vietnam. Jeers to the VA for foot dragging, hair splitting and buck passing.

[cheers[Welcome, chowder ‘heads’
How can anyone greet clam chowder except with cheers? A marketing project called Chowder Bounty offers $25 gift certificates to hotel guests to chowder down in the Bay Area. It’s a clever and tasty ploy.