Local News

Grants Pass Police jailed a man for crashing into another vehicle and injuring its occupants before fleeing the scene this week. The Police Department reports officers and emergency personnel responded to the two-vehicle collision at the intersection of SW 4th and J streets early Monday. Police said 39-year-old William Henry Haywood was driving a sport utility vehicle when he ran through a stop sign and crashed into another vehicle occupied by a woman and her young child, pushing it across a sidewalk and into a front yard. According to the report, the occupants were transported by ambulance to Three Rivers Medical Center with unspecified injuries. Their heavily-damaged vehicle was towed. Haywood fled the scene and was contacted about 45 minutes later by police on G Street. He admitted to being involved in a motor vehicle accident and said he fled because he was scared. Haywood was lodged at the Josephine County Jail for Felony Hit-and-Run. He was also cited for Failure to Obey a Traffic Control Device and No Insurance. His SUV was towed to the impound yard.

 

Grants Pass Police arrested man for vandalizing a downtown bank this week. According to the Police Department, officers were alerted to the incident at Wells Fargo Bank on NE 6th Street on Monday morning. Police said a witness observed a male subject smash out one of the small windows on the front door of the bank facing 6th Street. The bank manager was called and he contacted the Wells Fargo corporate office to obtain surveillance footage. Video surveillance showed a man later identified as 47-year-old Beau Thomas Beard intentionally kicking in a window at the bank, causing around $2,000 in damage. Officers searched the area and found him in the 200-block of SE G Street. Beard stated he was mad about his bags and he had used "bad meth" the night before. Beard was placed into custody and lodged at the Josephine County Jail for Felony 1st-Degree Criminal Mischief. He was being held without bail.

 

Grants Pass Police jailed a man on a local felony warrant after making a traffic stop on a bicycle in the downtown area early yesterday. The Police Department reports officers pulled over a bike ridden by 58-year-old Larry Drake Knight near the corner of SE 9th and M streets at 2:53 a.m. Tuesday. Police said they stopped Knight because he was riding the bike without a headlight or rear reflective device. They said he was found to be wanted on a Josephine County felony warrant for Parole Violation stemming from a 2021 conviction for 3rd-Degree Assault. After the warrant was confirmed, Knight was lodged at the Josephine County Jail on the warrant and he was being held on a no-bail detainer.

 

Crews at the Grants Pass Water Treatment Plant worked through another large river event last week. The Rogue River reached over 16 feet and crews produced water throughout the event, even with turbidity reaching levels over 300 units on December 29th. Flood stage on the Rogue in Grants Pass is 20 feet. Crews also responded to a faulty fire pump soft start at Laurel Ridge. The soft start provides fire flow to the closed loop-pump system in the event of an emergency. A replacement soft start was in stock and crews were able to support contractors during the replacement to get the pump back up and running quickly. Staff at the Grants Pass Water Restoration Plant have been exceptionally busy. With more than five inches of rain in the preceding week and more than two inches on December 28th, water was everywhere. Flows into the plant peaked on December 29th, reaching a rate of 26.5 million gallons per day -- nearly four to five times higher than the usual wintertime MGD.

 

Applications are being accepted for one position on the Grants Pass/Josephine County Bikeways & Walkways Committee due to a vacancy. This term expires on November 2, 2025. The purpose of this committee is to seek input from the community, coordinate and disseminate information for public education about biking and walking routes and rules, and serve as a resource and advisory group regarding bike and pedestrian trails for the City of Grants Pass and Josephine County. The special qualification for this position is a Grants Pass resident who represents the interests of bikers and walkers. Applications are available at the City Administration Office at 101 NW A Street or online at "grantspassoregon.gov/committee-application." Completed applications must be received by 5 p.m. this Friday, January 10th. Applications will be reviewed by the committee on Tuesday, January 14th. The appointment will be made by the Grants Pass City Council on Wednesday, February 5th.

 

The 2025 version of the Grants Pass City Council held a special meeting in front of a capacity crowd on Tuesday afternoon when they listened to a lot of opposition to their plans, but generally went ahead and approved them anyway. The first item was a resolution to revoke the grant agreement with the Mobile Integrative Navigation Team (MINT) for a permanent shelter for the homeless at 210 and 220 Redwood Highway. The vote was 5-to-2 to revoke the grant, with Council member Joel King absent. Public testimony was 22-to-4 against the resolution. The second resolution was to shut down the homeless campground on SE J Street. Councilor Dwayne Yunker made a motion to close J Street with a 72-hour notice for campers to vacate and limit "resting" hours at the 7th Street site to between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m. daily. Public testimony was 17-to-5 against the resolution. The third resolution was to suspend the $6.5 million Caveman Pool Project from moving forward and reallocate $1.2 million to Public Safety. Councilor Yunker made the motion, which was approved 6-to-1. In this case, two people -- including interim YMCA Director Brad Converse -- spoke in favor of project suspension. The fourth resolution was to sunset three advisory panels -- the Collaborative Economic Development Committee, the Housing Advisory Committee and the Sustainability & Energy Action Committee. All three committees were scrapped by a 5-to-2 vote. Public testimony was 11-to-0 against the resolution.

 

Local library district leaders say they were shocked when the Josephine County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to terminate the lease on the building that houses the Grants Pass branch. Claiming that the change from being a "county" to a "community" library in 2017 negates the County Charter mandate for "the support and maintenance" of libraries in Josephine County, recalled Commissioner John West urged his fellow commissioners to terminate the lease with 30 days' notice. The lease -- which has been in place for $1 per year since 2008 -- runs until the end of this year. West convinced new Commissioners Ron Smith and Chris Barnett that terminating the lease will bring the district to the table to renegotiate the lease. Josephine Community Library leaders said the discussion preceding the vote failed to consider that in the late-1990s, citing Measure 50, the Board of Commissioners shifted a 33-cent levy to the general fund to pay for public safety -- an increase in the county's property tax rate of 57%. The County then absorbed that levy into the permanent tax rate, raising it from 25 cents to 58 cents. Except for maintenance of the Grants Pass branch, none of that money goes toward supporting the library.

 

The statewide maps of wildfire hazard zones and the wildland-urban interface are complete and the final versions are now available on the Oregon Explorer website. The Oregon Department of Forestry reports notifications are being mailed to impacted property owners and should be expected to arrive over the next several days. According to ODF, the wildfire hazard map's purposes are to educate Oregon residents and property owners about the level of hazard where they live, assist in prioritizing fire adaptation and mitigation resources for the most vulnerable locations and identify where defensible space standards and home-hardening codes will apply. The statewide wildfire hazard map designates all of Oregon's 1.9 million property tax lots into one of three wildfire hazard zones: low, moderate or high. It also identifies whether a tax lot is within boundaries of the wildland-urban interface. Properties that are in both a high hazard zone and within the interface will be prioritized for future wildfire risk mitigation resources and actions.

 

Grants Pass Police jailed a man for crashing into another vehicle and injuring its occupants before fleeing the scene early yesterday. The Police Department reports officers and emergency personnel responded to the two-vehicle collision at the intersection of SW 4th and J streets at 9 a.m. Monday. Police said 39-year-old William Henry Haywood was driving a sport utility vehicle when he ran through a stop sign and crashed into another vehicle occupied by a woman and her young child, pushing it across a sidewalk and into a front yard. According to the report, the occupants were transported by ambulance to Three Rivers Medical Center with unspecified injuries. Their heavily-damaged vehicle was towed. Haywood fled the scene and was contacted about 45 minutes later by police on G Street. He admitted to being involved in a motor vehicle accident and said he fled because he was scared. Haywood was lodged at the Josephine County Jail for Felony Hit-and-Run. He was also cited for Failure to Obey a Traffic Control Device and No Insurance. His SUV was towed to the impound yard.