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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us August 5, 2005 Oregon TODAY Talent towns people talk growth TALENT— Residents just outside city limits filled the Talent Community Center on Wednesday to voice their concerns over a proposal that would include their rural neighborhood in a plan dictating where the city will grow in the future. A dozen neighbors from the Theo Drive/Rapp Lane area southwest of Talent took turns addressing the Talent City Council about the Regional Problem Solving process during the public hearing. The process, which will conclude in late August, selects the lands that will be considered for future inclusion inside the city’s urban growth boundary. Becoming a part of the urban growth boundary is one step toward annexing a property into city limits, however, the lands outside Talent that are being discussed in the RPS process would not be used for the city’s growth for a decade or more, city staff has said. “At the end of this hearing, at the end of the city process and the RPS discussion, there are still levels of public process necessary,” Talent city planner John Adam said at the Wednesday night meeting. The council will make a final decision about the inclusion of properties on Aug. 17. A July planning commission recommendation urges the council to leave the rural neighborhood out of the RPS process. IPO planned for Harry and David PORTLAND — Harry and David, the direct marketer of fruits and food gifts that is one Oregon’s best-known brand names, plans to hold an initial public stock offering. Buyout firms Wasserstein & Co. and Highfields Capital Management, which bought the company last year, announced its intentions in paperwork filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The company’s regulatory filing suggested that Harry and David might be planning to market products more aggressively via the Internet after the stock offering. The growth plans also include expanded wholesale and direct-to-business sales as well as improved profitability and selection at its 138 retail stores. Nearly 30 percent of Harry and David’s revenues came from catalog sales in fiscal 2005, which ended March 26. But Internet sales comprised 17 percent of the company’s $561.8 million in revenue, up from nine percent in 2000. A spokesman for Harry & David Holdings Inc., formerly known as Bear Creek Corp., declined comment Thursday. The plans for an IPO were revealed less than 14 months after Wasserstein, from New York, and Highfields, from Boston, bought the retailer from Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. for $252.9 million. No excuse for slow justice SALEM — Tight budgets and crowded dockets are not sufficient reasons to deny suspects the right to a speedy trial, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled. The high court, in deciding cases from three counties on Thursday, ruled judges must demand that prosecutors present legal — not fiscal or administrative — reasons for keeping charges alive when an accused person asks to have charges dropped because of a delay in going to trial. The attorney general’s office argued that the state court’s long-standing fiscal problems often slow the system and cases should not be dismissed for reasons court officials cannot control. But Associate Justice W. Michael Gillette, who wrote the high court’s opinions, found that the delays in the three cases — 11 months, 21 months and 23 months — were too long. Prosecutors and defenders were predictably split on the ruling. “It can and often is a challenge to get cases in front of a judge in an expedited manner, or what some would argue is a reasonable amount of time,” said Kevin Neely, spokesman for the attorney general’s office. “It is extremely troubling that the answer for lack of funding for some aspects of our criminal justice system is that offenders are able to have their cases dismissed.” — Staff and wire reports DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams