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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2015
SOUTH LANE COUNTY'S MOST AWARD-WINNING NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1889
Prozanski to preview
2015 legislature
Also
inside:
T
photo by Jon Stinnett
Duck backers at the Great Western Pub try to cheer their team to victory.
Eagle Count
Fans fl ock to back Ducks
Local sightings of the
national bird, page 8A
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
I
t’s doubtless that many
Duck football fans chose
to watch their team try to win
the National Championship
from the comfort of their own
living rooms. But one could
be forgiven for thinking other-
wise after glimpsing the green-
and-yellow clad crowds that
packed local watering holes to
cheer on the Ducks Monday
night.
Fans began showing up well
in advance of the 5:30 p.m.
game time, and many stayed
throughout for the less-than-
desirable conclusion (there
wasn’t a shred of Ohio State
gear to be seen, at least by this
reporter.)
The evening’s schedule had
already been cleared for local
leadership — the South Lane
School District Board of Di-
rectors acted preemptively to
reschedule its Jan. 12 meet-
ing to Jan. 5 in the event of
a Ducks’ Rose-Bowl win on
New Year’s Day, and Mayor
Tom Munroe canceled the
Steelhead!
Monster fi sh create a
huge day, page 6A
First baby
A New Year's gift for
a local couple,
page 3A
Cottage Grove City Council’s
Monday meeting and resched-
uled events such as his State of
the City Address for Monday,
Jan. 26.
For their part, the Ducks
punched their ticket to the
fi rst-ever National Champion-
ship game following a playoff
by crushing the Florida State
Seminoles in Pasadena, 59-
20, a lopsided victory that had
them looking very much like
the team to beat heading into
game time.
Duck fans had something
to cheer about early on, as
their offense marched ef-
fi ciently down the fi eld for
six points and the early lead.
Still, an uneasiness seemed
to grip the crowds at places
like Hard Knocks Brewing,
El Tapatio and even the Great
Western Pub, where a boister-
ous group sat ready to erupt
given the chance. They’d get
that chance to yell mostly fol-
lowing turnovers by the Ohio
State Buckeyes throughout the
middle frames of Monday’s
game, during which the Ducks
seemed to struggle to fi nd their
offensive rhythm.
Regardless of the venue, the
chant for many as the game
wore on became a simple one
— “Get Him!” as the Ducks
struggled in vain to contain
either Buckeye quarterback
Cardale Jones or, more com-
monly, running back Ezekiel
Elliott, who went on to pile up
a record-breaking 246 yards
on 36 carries en route to four
touchdowns.
Spirits rose for many after
halftime, when the Ducks’ of-
fense caught fi re to get within
a point of the Buckeyes, 21-
20. Still, there was no stop-
ping Elliott or Ohio State,
who quickly answered for two
touchdowns to effectively put
the game out of reach.
The Buckeyes would march
down the fi eld once again and
add another touchdown to seal
the deal and a National Cham-
pionship, 42-20, leaving Duck
fans with little to do but head
home, the evening’s elation
quickly evaporating into the
January night.
New director hired at Parent Partnership
Organization still trying to
right its fi nancial ship
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
L
ast
April,
the board
of direc-
tors
of
Cottage
Grove-
based
Carol Kuhn
nonprofit
Simons
Parent
Partner-
ship met to chart the future of
the organization — if there was
to be a future at all, that is.
Parent Partnership operates
three programs that aim to aid
VOLUME 126 • NUMBER 29
youth in South Lane School
District — First Steps Child-
care Center cares for the chil-
dren of the District’s teen moms
and some of its staff members;
the McKinney Vento Program
aids homeless students, and A
Primary Connection, a family
resource center targeting early
childhood development and
skills for new parents, is based
at Bohemia Elementary. The or-
ganization also runs a new teen
center at Kennedy High School.
At that fateful meeting, Board
President Bill Noah outlined
the issues the organization had
been facing: namely, that its
executive director was seeking
retirement and that, although its
programs, which are considered
highly successful, are funded,
its administrative costs are not.
“It’s diffi cult to raise funds to
pay an executive director,” Noah
said back then. “Essentially,
we’re out of money, we have no
money to recruit a director and
we couldn’t compensate that
person if we found them.”
South Lane Superintendent
Krista Parent added that state
and county funding paid a much
larger role in funding organiza-
tions like Parent Partnership in
the past. Funding has also been
diffi cult to secure for the First
Steps Childcare Center, she
said, because the school district
has seen less teen parenthood in
recent years.
Several new board members
came to the fore during that
discussion, as did Parent Part-
nership’s new director, Karol
Kuhn Simons, who worked in a
volunteer capacity to take over
the reins from outgoing Execu-
tive Director Anna Strong be-
tween that fateful meeting and
Strong’s exit in July. Simons
was offi cially hired as the orga-
nization’s new executive direc-
tor in November.
Simons has lived in Cottage
Grove since 1989 and has served
as President of the Chamber of
Commerce Greeters. She for-
merly served as a biologist with
the U.S. Forest Service and also
operates her own business, Fa-
cilitate Solutions.
“I’ve been around the com-
munity,” she said, by way of un-
derstatement.
As positive as Simons sought
to be regarding the current state
Please see SIMONS, Page 10A
he 2015 regular session
of Oregon’s legislative
assembly began on Monday,
and a visit by one member of the
legislature aims to preview the
session for Cottage Grove.
Cottage Grove’s Blackberry
Pie Society, which dedicates it-
self to “promoting good politics
and great people in South Lane
County and beyond” has invited
Democratic State Senator Floyd
Prozanski to preview the 2015
legislative session. Prozan-
ski will appear at Hard Knocks
Brewing (located at 1024 E.
Main St.) at 7 p.m. this Thurs-
day, Jan. 15.
The Society’s Leslie Ru-
binstein explained that Cedric
Hayden, the new representa-
tive of House District 7, was
also invited to Cottage Grove
this week but had a confl ict that
will make him unable to attend.
Hayden is expected to visit in
the near future.
Kevin Moore, a legislative
aide to Prozanski, explained
Monday that, since the session
just began and bills have of
course not yet been presented,
the Senator will be giving a
“high-level” preview of what to
expect for this year’s session.
Three hot-button topics that
promise to make waves, though,
are gun control, the legalization
of marijuana for recreational
purposes and the state budget,
and Prozanski is positioned to
make an impact particularly on
the fi rst two.
With regard to gun control,
Moore said Prozanski’s position
as Chairman of the Senate’s Ju-
diciary Committee will put him
in the midst of the fray of what
should be a hotly debated topic
for the legislature. On Friday, the
Oregonian reported that Prozan-
ski was among a group of sena-
tors discussing a bill that would
require background checks on
private gun purchases.
Prozanski is also in position
to fi gure into the implementa-
tion of Measure 91, which legal-
izes the recreational use of mar-
ijuana for those over age 21, as
a member of the joint commit-
tee charged with overseeing that
implementation. In addition,
he’ll include a question-and-an-
swer session involving an over-
view of the state budget, Moore
said, adding that the entire event
will take place in question-and-
answer form.
School Board talks
budget, potential
bond measure
BY MATT HOLLANDER
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
T
he South Lane School
Board had its fi rst meeting
of the New Year on Monday, Jan.
5. Topics of discussion included
Governor John Kitzhaber’s pro-
posed education budget for the
2015-’17 biennium, full-day
kindergarten, and an anticipated
2016 bond measure.
In reaction to the Governor’s
recently released budget for K-
12 education in the 2015-2017
biennium, SLSD made it clear
that the proposed $6.9 billion
would be inadequate. While
the budget is larger than in the
previous funding cycle, it also
contains several new, expensive
programs, including full-day
kindergarten, which is expected
to cost $220 million.
“It’s deceiving,” said SLSD
superintendent Krista of the
Governor’s proposed budget.
“People see $6.9 billon and say,
‘Awesome, that’s more than we
got in the last biennium.’ But
if you factor in all of the new
initiatives it’s about the same,
which isn’t enough when you
consider that costs have gone up
since then.”
Parent noted that historically
the budget for K-12 education
sees improvement after the Gov-
ernor’s initial proposal. She said
that a more appropriate budget
would be in the range of $7.2
billion, in which case SLSD
would be “fi ne.” However, that
fi nal fi gure could be released as
late as the summer — well after
SLSD will have started to pre-
pare its own budget. Although
not ideal, Parent said that SLSD
would be able to begin its bud-
geting process based on an es-
timate.
In addition to the budgetary
concerns, there will be logisti-
cal hurdles for SLSD to provide
full-day kindergarten beginning
in 2015-2016.
“Not only do you have to hire
more teachers, you have to fi nd
more classrooms, and purchase
new furniture and curriculum.
We think full-day kindergarten
is a good thing, but there are
a lot of details that need to be
worked out,” Parent said.
Classroom space is particu-
larly an issue at Bohemia and
Harrison schools: SLSD has
considered converting part of
the library at Bohemia into a
new classroom at an estimated
cost of $17,000. Harrison needs
at least one more classroom,
and one possible solution is to
purchase and install a portable
classroom, which would cost
over $100,000.
SLSD is continuing its prepa-
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Please see SLSD, Page 10A
Calendar......................................... 9B
Channel Guide ............................... 3B
Classified ads................................. 5B
Obituaries....................................... 2A
Opinion .......................................... 4A
Public Safety .................................. 5A
Sports ............................................ 1B
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