No, there's not a commercial construction project going on around every corner in the Roseburg area, but there is a pulse in the industry ... even after the largest project - Costco - was completed in early August.
"We're certainly not as busy as three years ago, but we're seeing a continual stream of activity in terms of remodels and small type projects," said Marion Thompson, senior planner for the city of Roseburg. "We haven't seen any new major residential subdivision projects in the last three to four years. I'm sure that's a sign of the economy."
Following are a few of the commercial projects that you may have seen under construction recently:
* Excavation of the hillside near the intersection of Garden Valley Boulevard and Stewart Parkway is being done to make room for a new Carl's Jr. restaurant. Following the earth removal and site preparation, a new Carl's Jr. building will be con

After working at three veterinary clinics in the past 10 years, Dr. Joe Roberts is going into business for himself.
Roberts and his wife, Lindsay, opened their Calapooia Veterinary Center at 835 S. Calapooia St., Sutherlin, on Aug. 18. In the business' early stages of growth, Joe Roberts will be the only veterinarian and Lindsay will be the office manager.
"We both like it here and we are close to family," said Joe Roberts of the couple's decision to settle in the Sutherlin area.
Roberts previously worked at Bailey Veterinarian Clinic from 2001 to 2005 and then at the Redmond Veterinary Clinic until March of this year, when the couple moved back to Douglas County. For the past several months, he has worked in this area in a mobile unit and worked at the Stayton Veterinary Hospital two days a week.
At the same time, the Robertses worked to get their own clinic up and running. They were fortunate to be informed of a 1,250 square foot building in Sutherlin that

The Umpqua's annual solar tour is set for Oct. 2, and it features several innovations.
Registrants assemble by 9 a.m. at Phoenix School, 3131 N.E. Diamond Lake Blvd., Roseburg, for refreshments and orientation. They ride buses to selected sites to learn about solar and micro-hydro installations at businesses and homes. On board, speakers talk about technologies, results, costs, incentives, tax credits, pay backs and contractors. By 4 p.m., chartered buses return participants to the school for exhibits, raffle drawings and snacks prepared by the Phoenix School culinary program.
Before and after the tour, participants may also view exhibits, continue conversations with solar pioneers and amble through Phoenix School's native plant nursery, vegetable garden and greenhouse.
Ample parking is available at Phoenix School; the use of private autos on the solar tour is not permitted. Registrants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch to enjoy at one of the noontime stops. Also, s

No, there's not a commercial construction project going on around every corner in the Roseburg area, but there is a pulse in the industry ... even after the largest project - Costco - was completed in early August.
"We're certainly not as busy as three years ago, but we're seeing a continual stream of activity in terms of remodels and small type projects," said Marion Thompson, senior planner for the city of Roseburg. "We haven't seen any new major residential subdivision projects in the last three to four years. I'm sure that's a sign of the economy."
Following are a few of the commercial projects that you may have seen under construction recently:

To see the full version of this story, see Sunday's print edition or return to nrtoday.com Sunday or Monday

The smoke and haze in the air around central Douglas County on Thursday was the result of controlled pasture burns in the Dillard, Metz Hill and North Bank Road areas.
Also, smoke in South County was blown in from the 8,000-acre Oak Flat Fire burning about 10 miles northwest of Selma in Josephine County. Poison oak has been burned in that fire, so people susceptible to poison oak may itch from the smoke.
Field burning usually starts in early September and continues into October until consistent rains put a stop to the burns. Permits from the Douglas Forest Protective Association must be obtained by property owners, and conditions for burning are monitored by DFPA on a day-by-day basis. A DFPA firefighting rig is usually on hand at each burn, and property owners also must have fire suppression equipment and personnel available in case a fire jumps a line.
Landowners also must have roads or bulldoze a 10- to 12-foot fire trail around the designated area before burning begins.
Ideal

The News-Review
Many state, county and city offices and schools will be closed Monday in honor of Labor Day.
The News-Review office will be closed, but the newspaper will be delivered as usual.
Other changes in schedules on that day include:
* All federal offices will be closed.
* State offices will be closed.
* U.S. Postal Service offices will be closed.
* City halls and county offices will be closed.
* Courts will not operate.
* All Douglas County library branches will be closed.
* Most banks will be closed. Some in-store bank branches may be open.
* Oregon Liquor Control Commission stores may choose to close or remain open under state guidelines. Call local stores for hours.
* Offices of Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services will be closed.
* Douglas County public schools, and most other schools, will be closed.
* Umpqua Community College is closed.
* The state lottery offices will be closed, b

The owner of a private ambulance service from outside Douglas County expects to set up shop in Roseburg to compete with fire departments for other calls. The company already has won a lucrative contract from Veterans Affairs, taking business away from Medcom, an ambulance service operated by Douglas County Fire District No. 2. What do you think of the prospect of more local business for Metro West and Bay City ambulance companies, which are based in Hillsboro and Coos Bay?

Douglas County's Umpqua rivers are the source of the crystal clear drinking water that flows out of every tap in and around Roseburg.
Could Roseburg be known for its water? Could the Cities Waterfront Development Plan on the south side of the river near downtown be the destination? Would it bring the tourists motoring up and down I-5 into Roseburg? I think so.
The potential for an Umpqua Waterfront Project for downtown Roseburg is actually unbelievable.
Located just across the river on Spruce Street a half block off of Washington Street, the Roseburg Chamber of Commerce Visitors Information Center is in a perfect position to be the first focal point of the waterfront park. It directs the way to the waterfalls, lakes, fishing, camping, hiking, wine tours, Diamond Lake, and the Colliding Rivers, giving a new meaning to the slogan "Stay and Play another Day in Douglas County."
It may surprise some to know that 50 years ago, George Singleton and other visionaries of that ti

DILLARD - Seventy workers at Roseburg Forest Products sawmill in Dillard will lose their jobs as the company eliminates its graveyard shift.
The Roseburg company will operate two shifts a day for the foreseeable future, said Hank Snow, vice president of human relations. The loss of the overnight shift affects about 22 percent of the company's 320 employees at the sawmill.
"It's just a bad economy," Snow said. "Until we get people building homes or buying furniture or kitchen cabinets, we're not going to see an increase in business."
Randy Fouts, business representative for Local 2949 of the Western Council of Industrial Workers, which represents the workers, said he hopes the market rebounds.
"I would hope that the economy improves enough to get everyone back to work as soon as possible," he said.
The layoffs will not affect production at the company's two Dillard plywood plants or its particleboard and melamine laminate mills, Snow said. Most of the

REEDSPORT - A rail car filled with steel plates and destined for American Bridge's fabrication plant on Bolon Island got sidetracked the day Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad shut down its line between Coos Bay and Eugene on Sept. 21, 2007.
With the rail route closed, the shipment was diverted to Portland, where the plates were loaded onto trucks and hauled to the coast.
That incident was merely an inconvenience that added time and cost to the shipment. The long-term ramifications of the rail shutdown for the Coraopolis, Penn., company has been much greater.
The Reedsport shop, which began operations in 2003, has been unable to bid on a large number of projects since 2007 because the jobs required construction of steel structures too large to send to work sites by truck.
Before the rail closed, the company employed 110 workers at the Reedsport shop. Today, American Bridge has 22 workers there. Plant Manager Fred Jacquot said the company expects to increase production and emp

Forget the Dow and the GDP. Here's the latest economic indicator: The U.S. birth rate has fallen to its lowest level in at least a century as many people apparently decided they couldn't afford more mouths to feed.
The birth rate dropped for the second year in a row since the recession began in 2007. Births fell 2.6 percent last year even as the population grew, numbers released Friday by the National Center for Health Statistics show.
"It's a good-sized decline for one year. Every month is showing a decline from the year before," said Stephanie Ventura, the demographer who oversaw the report.
The birth rate, which takes into account changes in the population, fell to 13.5 births for every 1,000 people last year. That's down from 14.3 in 2007 and way down from 30 in 1909, when it was common for people to have big families.
The situation is a striking turnabout from 2007, when more babies were born in the United States than any other year in the n

The owner of a private ambulance service that's already tentatively won a lucrative contract from Veterans Affairs says he plans to set up shop in Roseburg and compete with fire departments for other calls.
"We certainly hope to get around the issues with the local fire district and develop a good working relationship with them to serve the community," said J.D. Fuiten, owner and president of the Metro West and Bay City ambulance companies based in Hillsboro and Coos Bay, respectively. "We want to be a resource for your community down there, and we certainly hope to be viewed that way."
Fuiten recently won a five-year contract to transfer veterans to other hospitals from the Roseburg Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Douglas County Fire District No. 2, which currently has the contract, has filed a protest with the federal Government Accountability Office, asserting it was unfairly stripped of the contract.
Fuiten said he is undeterred by the protest, wh

The Roseburg Historic Resource Review Commission is considering whether to give the go-ahead to demolish two buildings in downtown Roseburg or to remove the city-owned buildings to sell the vacant lots. The buildings in question are the former fire station on Southeast Rose Street and the business building on Southeast Jackson Street that houses New Day Quality Grocery. What do you think about the options?

REEDSPORT - The International Port of Coos Bay was awarded $7.8 million Wednesday, the last funding step needed for the 111-mile Coos Bay rail line to Eugene to reopen next year.
"We are here today with the final piece that will make this happen," Gov. Ted Kulongoski said during a ceremony announcing the award at American Bridge's plant on Bolon Island north of Reedsport.
The grant from the ConnectOregon III infrastructure program is good news for shippers, who were forced to switch to more expensive truck shipments after the tracks were shut down without warning by Roseburg-based Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad in September 2007.
The port received the largest grant among 41 projects formally approved earlier Wednesday at the Oregon Transportation Commission meeting in Hermiston. Among the $97.1 million in projects funded was $1.2 million to extend the runway at the Roseburg Regional Airport.
David Kronsteiner, president of the port commission, thanked t

Salmonella that contaminated packages at Umpqua Dairy's milk processing plant in Roseburg was found in equipment that washes and sanitizes crates receiving packaged milk and juice, Doug Feldkamp said Wednesday.
Feldkamp said he didn't know how the salmonella got into the system, which state health and agriculture officials say has been cleaned and now meets safety standards.
"All the employees were working around the clock to make sure we sanitized that part of the company," Feldkamp said at a press conference at the dairy. He said the company will continue to monitor the system.
Officials have always thought the bacteria was on the packaging and not in the milk or juice, Feldkamp said after the press conference.
The Oregon Public Health Division attribute 23 cases of salmonellosis in nine counties to the bacteria at the dairy. Two people were hospitalized. The cases date back to October of last year. Health officials say that they only last week traced the illnesses

GLIDE
The Wolf Creek Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center will have an open house 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday. The center is at 2010 Opportunity Lane.
The open house will include the public being welcomed at 10 a.m., a tour at 10:30 a.m., community recognition awards at 11 a.m. and a free barbecue lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The Job Corps provides students with work experiences and vocational training.
Information: 541-496-8506.

WARRENTON (AP) - There's a poison that's plagued fishery students at Warrenton High School for years.
To get rid of it, and its deadly effect on the school's yearly crop of chinook, chum and coho salmon, students have spent hundreds - perhaps thousands - of hours scrubbing away deep mahogany-colored stains from the insides of the wide tubs the fish are reared in.
"We call it the scars of the Skipanon. It's ugly stuff," said Henry Balensifer, a Warrenton High School grad and chief executive officer of Warrenton High Fisheries Inc.
It's the water, drawn from the adjacent Skipanon River, that's the problem. Alder and hemlock trees' leaves drop into the slow-moving waterway and steep, leaching tannins into the water and turning it a cloudy brown. Together with the river's penchant for disease and low oxygen levels, the murky brew has proved a lethal challenge for students to battle with - year after year.
"St

Our little community has endured ... or ignored ... the very lengthy and often heated debate regarding a new store in town: Costco. Which emotion depends on how you look at this "cosmic" shopper event.
Location for the Roseburg outlet of the very successful Seattle area warehouse discounter has been the subject of many public struggles in our neighborhood for several years. Zoning issues, wetland issues, federal flight safety issues and increased traffic issues have been debated - drunk and sober - since the name Costco was first whispered locally.
But now ... now all the hurdles have been hurdled and we have daily access to rows and rows and stacks and stacks of things we need. Or think we do. If you want to buy your bar of bath soap in 12-count packages, go for it!
Barb and I have stood silently on the sidelines during this community debate. As a family unit of two, Costco hasn't been a big deal for us. Oh, we've gone to Eugene or Medford a few times to s

Members of Oregon's congressional delegation and county commissioners from throughout the state asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Friday to push President Barack Obama into including a 10-year extension of the timber safety net in his proposed 2012 budget.
Douglas County Commissioner Doug Robertson was among 38 county commissioners invited to meet with Vilsack at the U.S. Bank Building in downtown Portland. He was one of three commissioners chosen to address Vilsack on the importance of the extension to Oregon timber counties.
"This was an unprecedented gathering of the delegation meeting with a cabinet secretary in the room listening to county concerns," Robertson said.
The safety net is set to expire in June 2012, following a 35 percent reduction in safety net funding in the 2011-12 county fiscal year. At the same time Oregon politicians are seeking a long-term extension, they also want Congress to provide additional funding to prevent implementation of the full 35 percen

EUGENE - It took violin maker David Gusset only a few seconds to determine the violin owned by the Pioneer-Indian Museum in Canyonville was not a prized Stradivarius.
Gusset pulled the stringed instrument out of its case, peered at the front, turned it over, looked at the backside and along the sides before offering his appraisal.
"This is a very, very cheap instrument," said Gusset, a member of the International Society of Violin and Bow Makers and whose handcrafted violins sell for about $24,000.
Interestingly, a worn bow included in the case attracted more attention than the violin. Although many strands of horsehair pulled across its length had come undone and it looked ratty, the bow had a nice curve to it and was commercially made, Gusset said. Also, the head was in good shape, he said.
"The bow is actually more valuable than the violin," he said. "The bow is probably worth $500. The violin isn't worth anything."
The violin appears t