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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2016
Also
inside:
City says Main Street bridge
'could collapse any day'
Repairs expected to take funding from
another needed road project
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
C
Pen pal
Honor Flight leads to
long-distance
connection, page 6A
VOLUME 128 • NUMBER 39
SOUTH LANE COUNTY'S MOST AWARD-WINNING NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1889
ity offi cials say a bridge
that helps connect the
eastern and western halves of
Cottage Grove could fail at any
time, and repairs to one of the
area’s most ragged streets will
likely be delayed to address the
bridge issue.
City Manager Richard Mey-
ers told the City Council at its
March 14 meeting that the ap-
proach to the Main Street bridge
over the Coast Fork of the Willa-
mette River “could collapse any
day,” according to information
he said the City received from
OBEC Consulting Engineers.
“The river bank between the
bridge abutment and the land
on the other side of the street is
eroding,” Meyers said, referenc-
ing the abutment on the south
side of the bridge. “It needs to
be addressed right away.”
“It’s not a pothole, it’s a sink-
hole,” Meyers said of the prob-
lem, adding that the bridge re-
pairs will likely mean that the
notorious potholes on South
Sixth Street will likely not be
repaired this year.
“It’s going to kill the South
Sixth project,” he said. Late last
week, Meyers pointed out where
the road bed and sidewalk have
begun to shift in response to the
gradual washing-out of the river
bank beneath the roadway.
“The engineers need to do
more investigations to deter-
mine its urgency,” he said. The
City had planned to spend about
$400,000 to $500,000 fi xing
South Sixth Street using a pro-
cess called “crabbing” to cover
photo by Jon Stinnett
City Manager Richard Meyers examines evidence that
the ground under a downtown bridge is washing away.
its potholes. Meyers said the
City does not know how much
it will cost to fi x the Main Street
bridge but that the City “needs
to get moving” to get the bridge
Worksession
informs city
budget process
Seeking
its 'new
normal'
City considering adding
part-time police position,
nuisance abatement
LCC considers its future
in CG after enrollment
decline
Hoof!
Check out those
paws!, page 7A
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
I
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
O
n a Thursday morning, there’s
quite a bit going on at Lane
Community College’s Cottage Grove
campus.
One room plays host to a meeting
organized by the Oregon Community
Foundation. Nearby, families with
small children arrive at Peggy’s Pri-
mary Connection, the local family re-
source center that moved to the LCC
branch last fall. On Friday, the South
Lane Children’s Dental Clinic, which
also occupies space at the college, will
be in full swing.
But a sound that one might expect
from a college campus — the sound of
groups of young people milling about
in common areas or on their way to
photo by Jon Stinnett
Mary Jeanne Kuhar, LCC's Executive Dean, and local director Lida
Herburger, examine student achievements displayed in a case at the
local campus. The college is reaching out to see what offerings can
be most benefi cial in Cottage Grove.
a variety of classes — is noticeably
absent, and offi cials with LCC say
they’re not sure if the Cottage Grove
branch will be hosting young adults
just embarking on their college careers
anytime in the future.
These days, in the wake of an eco-
nomic slump that found Oregonians
returning to school in droves and the
subsequent recovery that has severely
Please see LCC, Page 11A
Building fee hearing sets off growth discussion
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
T
he Cottage Grove City
Council voted at its
Monday, March 14 meeting
to adjust some of the City’s
building fees after a short
public hearing.
Community Development
Director Howard Schesser
told the Council that the
City has been using a build-
ing permit tracking program
developed by the state of Or-
egon since 2008, a program
offered at no cost to the fi rst
14 jurisdictions that signed
up to use it fi rst.
Last year, Schesser said,
the City was notifi ed that it
would need to adjust its per-
mit fees to the state’s new
standard model of assess-
ment, after a 2009 statute
from the Oregon legislature
required a standard method-
ology for all building fees.
Some changes were pro-
posed for permits that fall
outside the scope of a stan-
dard permit, including some
electrical, mechanical and
plumbing permits. New fees
were also proposed for man-
ufactured home parks and
renewable electrical energy
systems.
One person spoke up
during the public hearing,
though realtor Ron O’Keefe
seemed to be addressing the
City’s Systems Development
Charges, or SDCs, which are
repaired.
“If it fails, traffi c headed
westbound could fall right into
the river,” he said.
fees assessed to developers to
offset the new burdens their
developments will place on
city systems. The Council
previously voted to raise the
fees to help fi nance a backlog
of infrastructure repairs that
have not been covered in the
general fund of the city bud-
get.
O’Keefe said that statis-
tics show that housing sales
in Oregon were 38 percent
better last year than the year
before.
“One would think that
builders would start coming
to Cottage Grove,” he said.
“There is defi nitely a short-
age of homes here.”
But new construction
seems scarce, and the prob-
lem, O’Keefe reasoned, is
that the City’s SDC fees are
scaring away potential build-
ers.
“People get excited about
Cottage Grove and all that’s
offered here, but if they want
to build, it scares a lot of peo-
ple away. I see this pattern
over and over,” he said.
O’Keefe said he didn’t be-
lieve the City should encour-
age a major housing boom by
keeping its SDC fees too low,
though their ability to stifl e
growth if the fees are too
high is also worth examining.
While Schesser pointed out
that the current action only
dealt with permit fees and the
Council subsequently voted
unanimously to support the
hike, City Councilor Mike
Fleck took the opportunity
to reiterate that he also feels
high SDC fees may be stifl ing
growth in Cottage Grove.
“It’s exactly what I’ve been
concerned about,” Fleck said,
adding that before the City
published the numbers of
recent building permits in is
Friday update, he would have
assumed that “nothing is go-
ing on” with regard to con-
struction here.
“There are very few rent-
als available,” he said. “It’s
becoming a big issue, and we
should look at our permits
and fees overall and try to be
competitive with other com-
munities.”
nformation from a fast-paced City Council
worksession that dealt with topics ranging
from fi ber optics to road improvements to a
potential marijuana tax is now being used to
set priorities in the City budget, according to
City Manager Richard Meyers.
At the worksession, held an hour before the
Council’s regular Monday meeting, Meyers
handed out a full-page list of topics and sought
direction on how to deal with deteriorating
city parking lots, implementation of the re-
cently approved Main Street Refi nement Plan,
amending the City charter to put the City in
fi rst position on any property liens related to
nuisance abatement, a potential bond for road
improvements that cannot be fi nanced by the
City’s general fund, potential updates to the
City’s fi ber optics system and much more. At
the close of the worksession, he again asked
each city councilor to state their fi rst priority.
The need for more police to combat a rise
in crime was mentioned, and the fi ber optics
upgrade was mentioned as a way to keep the
City at the forefront of developments that
could bring more and better jobs to town. The
Council appeared to support a bond to fi nance
road repairs, and several councilors said they
would like to see a plan to deal with the “limbo
houses,” or houses that are currently involved
in the foreclosure process and have owners
that are diffi cult to track down.
“We still didn’t answer the big questions,”
Meyers said, “but I did come away with a
general feeling of what the Council wanted to
do.”
For now, Meyers said city staff are explor-
ing the notion of adding a half-time position
at the police department to handle duties that
would free up time for sworn offi cers to devote
to patrols. Tasks such as checking door locks
of local businesses at night could be performed
by a part-time staffer, he said.
Meyers told the Council that the City is also
exploring the possibility of adding a part-time
staffer to handle nuisance abatement issues.
Currently, nuisance abatement is handled on a
Please see BUDGET, Page 11A
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133 Date St. Drain
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