City Beat — 5A
Art Walk lineup — 3A
Cheers for chips! — 6A
Finishing strong
Borigo, Hammel stand
atop state podium,
page 1B
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2015
SOUTH LANE COUNTY'S MOST AWARD-WINNING NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1889
VOLUME 126 • NUMBER 48
Also Main Street plan petition effort falls short
Benchmark to force a public vote
inside:
shy by 55 signatures
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
P
Track troubles
City exploring options
for BMX venue,
page 3A
etitioners hoping to place
Cottage Grove’s Main
Street Refi nement Plan before
voters in a September election
came up 55 votes short of their
goal, a letter from Lane Coun-
ty Elections confi rmed Friday
morning.
Program Supervisor Roxann
Marshall stated in a letter to
Cottage Grove City Recorder
Trudy Borrevik that the elec-
tions department processed 547
signatures and accepted 423 of
them, with many signatures re-
jected due to their signer’s not
residing in the proper district or
being registered to vote.
The Cottage Grove City
Council approved the plan, a
proposal for a redesign of Main
Street between its historic build-
ings, in April, with the efforts of
petitioners to have it put before
voters beginning about a week
after approval.
The plan calls for wider side-
walks and a narrower travel lane
on Main Street, in addition to
outdoor utilities and the correc-
tion of the “crown” of the street
itself. The fate of the maple trees
lining Main Street loomed large
in the public conversation about
the plan, especially early on,
and the current plan as adopted
calls for the systematic removal
and replacement of the trees in
the worst condition fi rst.
Tom McVey
plays the
bagpipes
during the
retiring of
the colors
during the
Memorial
Day service
Monday at
the Armory.
Sacrifi ces honored
at Memorial Day
service
photo by Matt Hollander
BY MATT HOLLANDER
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
A
bout 125 people par-
ticipated in the Memo-
rial Day services hosted by the
American Legion and the Vet-
erans of Foreign Wars Monday
at the Armory. The gathering,
which has been an annual tradi-
tion in the United States since
1868, was staged to honor the
millions of veterans who fought
and died to defend the country’s
freedom.
The event, which was headed
by Jeff Gowing, Commander of
the American Legion, drew vet-
erans from each branch of the
U.S. Armed Forces and from ev-
ery major confl ict since World
As per state law, petitioners
had one month from the passage
of the Main Street Refi nement
Plan to gather signatures repre-
senting 10 percent of the regis-
tered voters in Cottage Grove,
or 478 signatures, and they had
until 5 p.m. on May 13 to gather
them.
Chief petitioner Mary McNa-
mara could be seen gathering
signatures outside the Book-
mine downtown until just before
the deadline to turn them in. On
Monday, McNamara said that
while she is disappointed in the
ultimate outcome, the message
the referendum process should
send to those in government re-
mains.
“Of course we’re disappoint-
ed, but we’re also very apprecia-
tive of the legitimate signatures
we got, and of the people who
took the time to stand up and
War II.
In his address, Mayor Tom
Munroe, said that it was a dif-
fi cult task to write a speech this
year but, in the name of remem-
brance, he recalled what it was
like growing up in Oregon while
the nation was at war with Ger-
many and Japan.
This year’s guest speaker was
Brigadier General Norm Hoff-
man, who is the chairman of the
Oregon committee for Employ-
er Support of National Guard
and Reserve.
This is so important because
freedom is not free,” said Hoff-
man, who previously served in
the Armory. “And there’s noth-
ing like getting your history
from a veteran.”
Kenn Hunt of Veterans of
Foreign Wars Post 3473 read the
names of the 77 local military
veterans who passed away since
Memorial Day in 2014.
After closing remarks, Gow-
ing invited those in attendance
to join in a remembrance march
to Centennial Bridge, where the
American Legion Riders pro-
vided a 21-gun salute, a remem-
brance wreath was dropped into
the Coast Fork Willamette River
and Dan Cuyler played “Taps.”
speak out. The process has sure-
ly been informational for me,
and I hope it let the City know
that everything isn’t as easy as
they might think it would be,
that in the future they need to
stop and consider things more
closely. Those 423 people are
going to be watching what the
City does in the future. We still
live in Cottage Grove, and we
still care.”
McNamara said that people
had been “coming out of the
woodwork” to help gather sig-
natures, with many going door-
to-door in their efforts. She said
she would certainly be ready to
undertake another petition pro-
cess in the future if the need
arises, adding that she’s still
concerned about the impact the
Main Street Refi nement Plan
can one day have on the future
of Cottage Grove.
“I don’t think we need it
(downtown) to look like some
other place,” she said, “and I
think that’s what’s going to hap-
pen. It’s going to be like some
foreign place we’ve never lived
in before.”
McNamara had expressed
confi dence that the required
number of signatures could
be gathered. About 23 percent
would eventually be rejected
by elections offi cials; in addi-
tion to their signers not being
registered voters or living in the
wrong district, some petitions
were signed by voters with can-
celled registration, voters whose
signatures didn’t match voter
registration documentation or
whose ballots had been undeliv-
erable at one time.
Please see REFERENDUM, Page 9A
Meet the 'Cottage
Grove Waver'
Kreamier works to spread happiness
one wave at a time
BY COURTNEY MAITIA
For the Sentinel
C
larence
Kreamier
wants to turn your
frown upside down.
Kreamier sits on the cor-
ner of North 16th and Main
streets in Cottage Grove on
sunny mornings and after-
noons and simply waves at
people as they are driving
through traffi c with a grand
smile on his face and his
American fl ag dancing in the
wind. He says his goal in life
is to spread happiness.
Kreamier is a Vietnam vet-
eran and a retired Safeway
truck driver.
When asked why he does
what he does, he said he “en-
joys the smiles, waves and
laughs” he receives from
passersby, adding that people
have told him that his posi-
tive attitude has changed their
lives for the better.
Kreamier believes that
“happiness is what keeps
people going in life”. So the
old saying that “happiness is
contagious, and it starts with
a smile” must be true, because
Clarence Kreamier seems to
be one very happy man.
Courtney Maitia is a pho-
tojournalism student at Lane
Community College.
Mort squeaks by Hemenway for School Board post
Caven holds off
Duffy for Fire Board
reelection
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
E
ven Gary Mort himself
seemed surprised at what
he had done.
While the results won’t be of-
fi cial until June 8, Mort appears
to have triumphed by a mere
13 votes over incumbent South
Lane School Board representa-
tive Darin Hemenway in the
Tuesday, May 19 election, an
election that could be character-
ized by a low voter turnout of
just over 36 percent countywide
and a large number of under
votes.
Mort, an instructor at Lane
Community College since 1998,
said that he had “no sense of
how” he was doing in the run-up
to the election, adding that the
apparent diffi culty of beating an
incumbent in this area loomed
large. Still, Mort had garnered
endorsements from the local
teacher’s union and the Black-
berry Pie Society following its
candidate forum.
Joining Mort on the School
Board will be longtime South
Lane educator Jerry Settel-
meyer, who bested competitors
Nevin Beckes and Ben Price
for the Board’s Position 6. Cur-
rent Board President Tammy
Hodgkinson won an unopposed
reelection at Position 1, while
incumbent Merlene Martin tri-
umphed over challenger Cirila
Appellof by a wide margin.
Elsewhere in the election,
Mike Caven staved off chal-
lenger Dan Duffy to earn reelec-
tion to the South Lane Fire and
Rescue Board of Directors by
139 votes.
Mort said that he attempted to
keep his campaign positive de-
spite his concerns about the per-
formance of the current School
Board.
“I tried to say, ‘Vote for me if
you think I can do a better job of
this,’” he said. “But I don’t feel
like the Board has been respon-
sive to the public or adequately
skeptical about what it is pre-
sented. I’m not always happy
with the decisions the Board
makes, but I’m more concerned
about the process, and as a mem-
ber of the public, that hasn’t al-
ways been clear to me.”
Mort said that his competi-
tion, Hemenway, “seemed in-
visible” throughout the cam-
paign, having not contributed to
the voter’s pamphlet or attended
the Blackberry Pie Society fo-
rum. (Hemenway could not be
contacted by Sentinel press time
for this article.)
photo by Courtney Maitia
Clarence Kreamier offers a wave and a smile for
passersby on Main Street.
Rain Country Realty Inc.
Principal Brokers
Teresa Abbott ..................221-1735
Frank Brazell....................953-2407
Lane Hillendahl ................942-6838
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America, and to the republic
for which it stands, one nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Brokers
Laurie Phillip....................430-0756
Valerie Nash ....................521-1618
CONTACT US
www.cgsentinel.com
On the Internet
(541) 942-3325
By telephone
(541) 942-3328
By fax
cgnews@cgsentinel.com
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