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About Illinois Valley news. (Cave City, Oregon) 1937-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 29, 2003)
City Council JoCo. Commissioners OK’s club pay visit to Illinois Valley free use of showers as well as other reno- By SAM NEWTON vations, according to the com- Staff Writer missioners. An unusually high turnout Jubilee Park COUGARS SILENCE HONKERS - The Illi- nois Valley High School Cougar varsity boys basketball team was outscored by Lakeview 8-2 in the first quarter of the fourth game of Skyline Con- ference competition. At the start of the sec- ond quarter the Cou- gars charged past the Honkers intimidating zone defense to win the game with a score of 49-26 on Friday, Jan. 24 at Illinois Valley High School in Cave Junc- tion. The Cougars next home game will be on Friday, Feb. 7 against the Phoenix Pirates. The Cougars’ Skyline Conference record is 1- 3. (Photos by Gary Bell) (Additional photos on page 12) Biscuit Fire funds help to make improvements at Lake Selmac By BRITT FAIRCHILD Staff Writer A $70,000 project to build a new shower facility at Lake Selmac Park won’t cost Josephine County one-cent. Under an Oregon Oppor- tunity Grant, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Dept. agreed to foot half of the total cost, provided the county comes up with the other $35,000. During its Wednesday, Jan. 22 morning meeting in the Anne G. Basker Audito- rium in Grants Pass, the county board of commission- ers approved allocating some of the rent money it received from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to cover its portion of the bill. USFS used the park dur- ing the height of the Biscuit Fire as a base camp for more than 6,000 firefighters and support personnel helping contain the blaze. Besides the little more than $100,000 it paid in rent, USFS also covered some of the rehabilitation costs for areas damaged while assisting with the fire. A public meeting was held at the Selma Community Center in October so that area residents could suggest how the money should be spent. “This isn’t going to cost the county anything,” said Mike Strahan, park supervi- sor, who explained some of the project’s details to the commissioners at the meeting. The new facility will house four private unisex showers, with doors that lock, in a building separate from the two existing showers, Strahan said. At least one of the four showers will comply with ADA standards. Neither of the two showers there now meet such requirements, he added. And, adding more show- ers will help better serve visi- tors at the park’s 50 camp- sites, he said. Strahan said that construc- tion is scheduled to begin in the spring when the tempera- ture warms and the weather improves. But Strahan noted that he is not yet sure how long the project will take, or which company will be contracted to do the work. Strahan also noted that plans for the construction of a Frisbee golf course -- another idea suggested at the October meeting -- are under way. However, he didn’t give a time frame as to when the golf course would be completed. By SHARON SILVA Staff Writer The Cave Junction Lion’s Club will be able to use Jubi- lee Park at no cost for its an- nual car show on June 28. The Cave Junction City Council quickly approved club President Bobbette San’s request during its short Mon- day, Jan. 27 meeting. “Most of the money we take in as a non-profit organi- zation goes right back to the community,” San said. “We donate to the Boys & Girls Club of Illinois Valley, the Illinois Valley Safe House Alliance, Illinois Valley High School’s grad night event, and the Christmas Basket Pro- gram. “We send donations to the Lion’s Sight and Hearing Cen- ter in Medford, where they process applications for peo- ple here in the valley,” San said. Council member Rita Dyer said she wanted to make sure that the council treated all non-profits the same. She then made a motion to approve free use of the park by the Lion’s Club. The motion was approved 4-0, as council member Dan Fiske was absent from the meeting. Barbara Silva and Laron Estes, owners of the Blue (Continued on page 12) was noted at the Josephine County Commissioners quar- terly citizens meeting on Mon- day evening, Jan. 27 at the county building in downtown Cave Junction. The I.V. Airport Industrial Park and improvements at Lake Selmac Park were a few of the items on the agenda More than 20 people at- tended the meeting, including members of the I.V. Airport Advisory Board and Friends of the I.V. Airport. Commis- sioners Harold Haugen, Jim Brock and Jim Riddle led a discussion on the subject of improvements to the airport. Portions of the discussion included the possible leasing of land on the west side of the runway and the construction of a hangar by a private citi- zen. Matching grant money for further developments were also discussed. Sharon Westcott of Friends of the I.V. Airport said that hopefully a lot of the airport issues will be resolved during the airport advisory workshop on Monday, Feb. 3. Bringing the smokejum- pers back to the valley and possible use of the airport for helicopter training for initial response in case of another fire like the Biscuit Fire were also discussed. At Lake Selmac, plans are under way to install new IVHS health center closes due to shortage of funds By BRITT FAIRCHILD Staff Writer Even Measure 28’s suc- cess won’t likely save the stu- dent health center at Illinois Valley High School. The Josephine County Public Health Division is pre- paring to close the facility Fri- day, Jan. 31, leaving hundreds of students and parents with- out access to basic health care. “There are a number of students that use the center,” said Linda Stohlman, a regis- tered nurse with the county Health and Community Ac- tion who has been at the cen- ter since its inception in 1994. Once it closes, no health services whatsoever will be provided at the high school, as the Three Rivers School Dis- trict does not employ any school nurses, Stohlman said. Students from private and home schools use the IVHS center as well. “It’s a very busy clinic,” Stohlman said. During the last school year alone, 311 of the 410 stu- dents enrolled at IVHS re- ceived care at the clinic, for a total of 1,179 visits, according to a 2002 report on Oregon’s school-based health centers. Not to mention the amount of parents who have grown accustomed to having many of their children's’ health needs taken care of, Stohlman added. The IVHS clinic is not alone in its pending closure. The 43 other Oregon school- based health centers that are funded by the state will also shut down as a result of the budget shortfall, according to Stohlman. The IVHS clinic provides a wide range of services at no cost to students, including treatment of common ill- nesses, such as a cold, or sore throat and some injuries; and drug and smoking prevention., with parental consent required for all services. There is a fee sports physicals and for im- munizations that state law re- quires for enrollment in public schools. Without a lab or X-ray equipment, for example, some services aren’t available at the clinic and students are referred to family physicians. “We like to do a lot of preventative (medicine),” Stohlman said, adding that education is a main function of the center, including teach- ing students and their parents how they can access health care beyond the school-based clinic. But many IVHS students who use the center do not have health insurance, Stohlman said. Plus, transpor- tation is limited in such a rural area. Serving students at the high school means they can receive care and return to class quicker than if they had (Continued on page 12) During their meeting Wednesday, Jan. 22, the com- missioners approved using part of the money the U.S. Forest Service paid in rent for use of the park during the Bis- cuit Fire to go toward con- struction of the shower facil- ity. It was one of several sug- gestions made during a previ- ous public forum regarding how the USFS funds should be spent. Cave Junction city council member, Rita Dyer, said that the city, county and YMCA had entered into an agreement to split the cost of operating the I.V. Pool and hoped it would continue. “It has been a successful partnership,” Dyer said. “Even though the pool was closed quite a bit during the Biscuit Fire, the pool was able to save some funds last year that can be used this year,” she added. Brock noted that the com- missioners were trying to maintain the agreement for five years. In addition, Haugen re- ported the results of a county- wide survey conducted by Oregon State University in Corvallis. For the survey, 406 Jose- phine County residents were asked if they felt it was ac- ceptable to harvest timber burned in the Biscuit Fire. Some 85.5 percent answered “yes.” In response to another question, 89.7 percent agreed (Continued on page 12) USFS Biscuit open house set for Jan. 30 The U.S. Forest Service invites the community to dis- cuss and share information with resource specialists re- garding land management rec- ommendations presented in the Biscuit Post-Fire Assess- ment concerning Siskiyou Na- tional Forest lands affected by the Biscuit Fire. The Cave Junction com- munity open-house will be held at the county building in downtown Cave Junction on Thursday, Jan. 30, 3-7 p.m. For more information contact Janice Schultz at (541) 471- 6722. Measure 28 ‘Pass or Fail’ By SAM NEWTON Staff Writer As of 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 28 preliminary results from the Josephine County Clerks office for the 2003 January Special Election for Measure 28 are as follows: With 86.95 percent of the bal- lots returned from 40 of 46 Oregon counties: - No votes - 14,334 - 57.67 percent. Yes votes - 10,477 - 42.15 percent. Final results of the elec- tion will be in next weeks is- sue of the ‘Noose.’
